The Frontispiece Image in Autobiography

Abstract

The chapters that follow, unlike the earlier five chapters, are organised by theme. The first in this section of the book discusses the hitherto ignored aspect of the frontispiece photograph, and is closely linked with the chapter that follows, ‘Prefaces, Prologues, Forewords and Introductions’. The study of frontispiece photographs has significant importance in the formation of women’s personal identity and consciousness. Linda Haverty Rugg wrote that: ‘This [the photograph] is a subject deserving serious attention, for it is precisely uninterrogated presentations of photography and autobiography that can work toward the most powerful support of ideological assumptions. But, I decided instead to concentrate on […] the self in language and image’.¹