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Mary Boykin Chesnut (née Miller) (March 31, 1823 – November 22, 1886), was a South Carolina author noted for a book published as her Civil War diary, a "vivid picture of a society in the throes of its life-and-death struggle."〔Woodward, C. Vann. "Introduction", Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut, ''Mary Chesnut's Civil War'', 1981.〕 She described the war from within her upper-class circles of Southern planter society, but encompassed all classes in her book. She was married to a lawyer who served as a United States senator and Confederate officer. Unlike her husband, Mary secretly held anti-slavery views. Chesnut worked toward a final form of her book in 1881–1884, based on her extensive diary written during the war years. It was published in 1905, 19 years after her death. New versions were published after her papers were discovered, in 1949 by the novelist Ben Ames Williams, and in 1981 by the historian C. Vann Woodward. His annotated edition of the diary, ''Mary Chesnut's Civil War'' (1981), won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1982. Literary critics have praised Chesnut's diary—the influential writer Edmund Wilson termed it "a work of art" and a "masterpiece" of the genre〔Wilson, Edmund. ''Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War''. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1962, pp. 279-80.〕—and the most important work by a Confederate author. == Life == Mary Chesnut was born on March 31, 1823, on her maternal grandparents' plantation, called Mount Pleasant, near Stateburg, South Carolina, in the High Hills of Santee. Her parents were Stephen Decatur Miller (1788–1838), who had served as a U.S. Representative, and Mary Boykin (1804–85). In 1829 her father was elected governor of South Carolina and in 1831 as a U.S. Senator. The family then lived in Charleston. Mary was the oldest of four children; she had a younger brother Stephen and two sisters: Catherine and Sarah Amelia.〔 At age 13, Miller began her formal education in Charleston, where she boarded at Mme. Talvande's French School for Young Ladies, which attracted daughters from the elite of the planter class. Talvande was among the many French colonial refugees who had settled in Charleston from Saint-Domingue (Haiti) after its Revolution.〔 Miller became fluent in French and German, and received a strong education.〔(Nomination for Mulberry Plantation ) National Park Service, accessed 29 May 2008〕 Leaving politics, her father took his family to Mississippi where he bought extensive acreage. It was a crude, rough frontier compared to Charleston. He owned three cotton plantations and hundreds of slaves. Mary lived in Mississippi for short periods between school terms but was much more fond of the city.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mary Boykin Chesnut」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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