This book explores how the publication of women's life writing influenced the reputation of its writers and of the genre itself during the nineteenth century. It provides case studies of Frances Burney, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Robinson and Mary Hays, four writers whose names were caught up in debates about the moral and literary respectability of publishing the 'private' through diaries, lettes, memoirs and (auto)biography. Focusing on gender, genre and authorship, this study examines key works of life writing by and about these women, the reception of these texts in essays, reviews, fiction, poetry and other life writing, qualitative and quantitative data like prints runs, circulation figures, pricing and reprinting patterns. The book examines: Diary and letters of Madame D'Arblay (1842-1846) / Frances Burney : Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796) / Mary Wollstonecraft : Memoirs of the author of a Vindication of the rights of woman (1798) / William Godwin : Memoirs (1801) / Mary Robinson : Female biography (1803) / Mary Hay : (Coda:) Common Reader / Viriginia Woolf (1925, 1932).