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Between Ourselves: Letters Between Mothers and Daughters 1750-1982
Between Ourselves: Letters Between Mothers and Daughters is a milestone in women's studies and a moving documentary tribute to the intellectual and emotional resources of women around the world as dramatized in over two hundred years of letter writing.
In this remarkable anthology, Karen Payne has brought together private letters on a wide range of controversial subjects from over a hundred pairs of mothers and daughters, around the world and across two centuries.
Some of these women are known from the history books but, in this unusual selection, such famous women as Florence Nightingale, Queen Victoria, George Sand and Vera Brittain rub shoulders with a dramatic cross-section of unknown women whose wit and courage are equally inspiring.
From the nineteenth-century French provinces to modern Cuba and Iran, from Africa to Australia to Manhattan, these women explore the contradictions of their lives with humour and passion. Love, childcare, domesticity, work, sexual and racial identity, war, political beliefs, art, ambition, independence, bereavement — across all boundaries, these are the recurring themes.
In this remarkable anthology, Karen Payne has brought together private letters on a wide range of controversial subjects from over a hundred pairs of mothers and daughters, around the world and across two centuries.
Some of these women are known from the history books but, in this unusual selection, such famous women as Florence Nightingale, Queen Victoria, George Sand and Vera Brittain rub shoulders with a dramatic cross-section of unknown women whose wit and courage are equally inspiring.
From the nineteenth-century French provinces to modern Cuba and Iran, from Africa to Australia to Manhattan, these women explore the contradictions of their lives with humour and passion. Love, childcare, domesticity, work, sexual and racial identity, war, political beliefs, art, ambition, independence, bereavement — across all boundaries, these are the recurring themes.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1983
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 12, 2010
I realize that I'm an impatient person, but I'm only able to manage so much navel-gazing, and when I'm not able to relate to a text, I tend to lose interest.
This book is from 1982, and it is a feminist educational tool using letters between mothers and daughters to show how relationships have changed, and yet stayed the same, throughout 230-ish years of history. Women deciding whether or not to have children; women coming out to their mothers as lesbians; women deciding to live with their male partners without benefit of marriage (gasp!)
The Women's Movement is very present in this piece - men are often portrayed as the bad, bad oppressors. There are a few reasons I'm unable able to relate to the expressions here. While I was oppressed at various points of my life; I wasn't oppressed because my husband was a man, but because he was a jerk. Nor do I identify with the angst between the mothers and daughters given that, while my relationship with my own mother was sometimes difficult in my teen years, it blossomed when I grew up and I lost her when I was 21, so I don't have the luxury of long years of back-and-forth, hurt feelings and "what did she mean by that?" moments.
This book is a classic example of getting out of a reading experience, what you bring to it. Older women, who lived through the Movement, who had their mothers for a longer period of time, who have children of their own, will find something here far different from what I did. For me, because I lay claim to none of those things, the letters became rather "samey" (a fantastically illustrative word my husband uses) and I grew bored. Repetition may be a good tool for helping one remember an historical fact, but it's terrible for maintaining interest.
This book is from 1982, and it is a feminist educational tool using letters between mothers and daughters to show how relationships have changed, and yet stayed the same, throughout 230-ish years of history. Women deciding whether or not to have children; women coming out to their mothers as lesbians; women deciding to live with their male partners without benefit of marriage (gasp!)
The Women's Movement is very present in this piece - men are often portrayed as the bad, bad oppressors. There are a few reasons I'm unable able to relate to the expressions here. While I was oppressed at various points of my life; I wasn't oppressed because my husband was a man, but because he was a jerk. Nor do I identify with the angst between the mothers and daughters given that, while my relationship with my own mother was sometimes difficult in my teen years, it blossomed when I grew up and I lost her when I was 21, so I don't have the luxury of long years of back-and-forth, hurt feelings and "what did she mean by that?" moments.
This book is a classic example of getting out of a reading experience, what you bring to it. Older women, who lived through the Movement, who had their mothers for a longer period of time, who have children of their own, will find something here far different from what I did. For me, because I lay claim to none of those things, the letters became rather "samey" (a fantastically illustrative word my husband uses) and I grew bored. Repetition may be a good tool for helping one remember an historical fact, but it's terrible for maintaining interest.
November 30, 2016
I found this book in a charity shop years ago and couldn’t resist it as I love anthologies of women’s letters. It was published in 1983, when letters were still an important means of personal communication and there was as yet no sign of that changing. Indeed, I wrote plenty of pen pal letters myself in the 1990s. Now, such a mode of communication feels like more of a curiosity. Nonetheless, I still write letters as I find them a qualitatively different experience to emails and one that lends itself to emotional intimacy. All the letters collected in this book are attempting, under various circumstances, greater emotional intimacy between mothers and daughters. That important bond is to a point the focus, yet the attached biographical details of each letter writer render it a broader book about feminism, gender roles, family dynamics, and generational differences. As such, it is at times incredibly moving and powerful. Particularly heart-rending are the letters written by women about to be executed as part of the resistance during WWII to their daughters, knowing that they will never see them again.
Some of the letter-writers will be known to the reader: Sylvia Plath, Florence Nightingale, George Sand, and Amelia Earheart. Most are not famous women but all have written powerful letters, stretching from the 18th century to the late 20th. They paint a fascinating picture of women’s bonds, tragedies, and tensions. There is a wonderful sense of the power and comfort that comes from solidarity between women. It’s a lovely collection, greater than the sum of its parts. It makes me sad, though, that thirty years later feminists are still fighting the same battles: for access to safe abortions, against rape culture and homophobia, for fairer pay and conditions. Although current culture encourages us to live in the endless present moment (cf Rushkoff’s Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now), it is salutary to realise that our mothers had to deal with many of the same problems, albeit differently manifested. I defy you to read this book and not want to write someone a letter by the end.
Some of the letter-writers will be known to the reader: Sylvia Plath, Florence Nightingale, George Sand, and Amelia Earheart. Most are not famous women but all have written powerful letters, stretching from the 18th century to the late 20th. They paint a fascinating picture of women’s bonds, tragedies, and tensions. There is a wonderful sense of the power and comfort that comes from solidarity between women. It’s a lovely collection, greater than the sum of its parts. It makes me sad, though, that thirty years later feminists are still fighting the same battles: for access to safe abortions, against rape culture and homophobia, for fairer pay and conditions. Although current culture encourages us to live in the endless present moment (cf Rushkoff’s Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now), it is salutary to realise that our mothers had to deal with many of the same problems, albeit differently manifested. I defy you to read this book and not want to write someone a letter by the end.
August 26, 2021
Does this ever coalesce into having a message or is it just Chicken Soup for the Soul? Would give less than a star if I could.
November 6, 2025
I picked Between Ourselves up from the communal bookshelf at Highgate tube station — before it was sadly abolished — and expected a moving and perhaps complicated look into interpersonal relationships between mothers and daughters. While the copy was a bit battered, I didn't realise the book was older than me!<
While 'the personal is political', the focus of Between Ourselves is much more on the political and social status of women than on their inner emotional lives. Each grouping of letters comes with a lot of detailed historical context — which is sometimes lengthier than the letter or letters themselves. Said historical context all comes, of course, from when the letters were collected: in the early 1980s, complete with conjecture about how things might progress in the 'future' (which is now the past).
The letters are organised by theme — housework, men, ambition, children, lesbianism and separation — with some mother-daughter pairs appearing in multiple sections. It's not a book that's easily broken up into convenient reading sessions for the casual reader. Every reader has a mother, so most would surely find some section or passage to be relatable, but it might take quite some digging through to actually find it.
Karen Payne has collected letters from famous writers like Sylvia Plath, but also from ordinary women who appear credited only by a first name. Both are equally likely to be interesting, and the balance between the two worked well to keep the collection feeling grounded.
Between Ourselves does what it sets out to do very effectively. Unfortunately, the book Karen Payne wanted to edit is not quite the book I expected it to be, or wanted to read. Chalk this up to another failed attempt to find non-fiction that I actually enjoy!
While 'the personal is political', the focus of Between Ourselves is much more on the political and social status of women than on their inner emotional lives. Each grouping of letters comes with a lot of detailed historical context — which is sometimes lengthier than the letter or letters themselves. Said historical context all comes, of course, from when the letters were collected: in the early 1980s, complete with conjecture about how things might progress in the 'future' (which is now the past).
The letters are organised by theme — housework, men, ambition, children, lesbianism and separation — with some mother-daughter pairs appearing in multiple sections. It's not a book that's easily broken up into convenient reading sessions for the casual reader. Every reader has a mother, so most would surely find some section or passage to be relatable, but it might take quite some digging through to actually find it.
Karen Payne has collected letters from famous writers like Sylvia Plath, but also from ordinary women who appear credited only by a first name. Both are equally likely to be interesting, and the balance between the two worked well to keep the collection feeling grounded.
Between Ourselves does what it sets out to do very effectively. Unfortunately, the book Karen Payne wanted to edit is not quite the book I expected it to be, or wanted to read. Chalk this up to another failed attempt to find non-fiction that I actually enjoy!
November 9, 2023
Amazing premise; terribly disappointing execution.
I have major issues with the formatting of the text. The author has her own commentary, the letters themselves, then more recent letters she solicited from some of the daughters. Font sizes, block quotes, quotation marks - there doesn’t seem to be consistency, so you can’t tell what you’re actually reading.
My other issue is this quote from chapter 2: “for centuries the very survival of a woman depended on being attached to a man. Today, for almost the first time in history, mothers and daughters can discuss the role of men in our lives in terms of the quality of our relationships with them, rather than just in terms of security and survival.”
What is this, Baby’s First Third Wave Feminism?
I have major issues with the formatting of the text. The author has her own commentary, the letters themselves, then more recent letters she solicited from some of the daughters. Font sizes, block quotes, quotation marks - there doesn’t seem to be consistency, so you can’t tell what you’re actually reading.
My other issue is this quote from chapter 2: “for centuries the very survival of a woman depended on being attached to a man. Today, for almost the first time in history, mothers and daughters can discuss the role of men in our lives in terms of the quality of our relationships with them, rather than just in terms of security and survival.”
What is this, Baby’s First Third Wave Feminism?
April 14, 2018
I got through most of this. Some of it was very interesting and intimate; some was quite dull. Not sure I gained any over-arching insight.
December 2, 2020
Mother's and daughter underlines a personal and unique bonds mothers share with their daughter.
Give me a reply plzz
Give me a reply plzz
October 23, 2015
This book sparked my love of reading letters and diaries. It is a wonderful compilation of letters written between mothers and daughters that spans 232 years (no e-mails in this book). Letters range from everyday occurrences to issues that are relatively unique to that period (such as abortion). The relationships between these mothers and daughters (some well known, others unknown to anyone except the editor) ranges from friendships to antagonistic. It's hard to really describe this book because of the range of these letters. Many letters are anonymous, some do not come with responses, and some sections are devoted to one mother and daughter writing to each other back and forth. When the author of these letters is known, a brief biography is given to shed some light on who the woman was who wrote a letter. Except for some well known American women, most of the women compiled here are from England, some from elsewhere. This book mainly focuses on emotions and not events, but it's a fantastic glimpse into the lives of mothers and daughters spanning a couple of hundred years.
September 3, 2013
This is a great book to read if you are pondering your own mother-daughter or daughter-mother relationship and want to know how other women feel/felt about their mothers. I found the letters by famous women intriguing. I was especially touched by the letters between Aurelia Plath and her daughter, Sylvia. Sylvia's talent shone forth in her letters which were newsy and loving, and Aurelia's comments on Sylvia's life and death were incredibly understanding and enlightening. Recommend this book as a bridge between mothers and daughters and a beginning of understanding of both positive and negative aspects of resolution of this complex relationship.
I thought the material on lesbian relationships a bit outdated but am not an expert on this and have not read any literature on relationships between lesbian daughters and their mothers. The book was slow-going at times, but entirely worthwhile and I recommend trying to read all of it if you can.
I thought the material on lesbian relationships a bit outdated but am not an expert on this and have not read any literature on relationships between lesbian daughters and their mothers. The book was slow-going at times, but entirely worthwhile and I recommend trying to read all of it if you can.
July 29, 2009
Great book! Now that letter writing is (sadly) defunct this collections of letter between mothers and daughters is a wonderful commemoration of the art. I really enjoyed the letters between ordinary women and their moms about life, work and love. There are also letters between famous women and their mothers and daughters. I found these less entertaining, maybe because I expected more from the famous. What I did learn is that Florence Nightingale was a total whiner. Disappointing.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews