Making available what is perhaps the longest-running diary in existence, "Selected Journals of Caroline Healey Dall, 1838-1855" offers what arguably is the most complete account we have of a nineteenth-century American woman's life. Dall (1822-1912), a participant in the transcendentalist, abolitionist, women's rights, and social science movements, filled her journals with intelligent reflections and keen analysis of her world. This, the first of three volumes, begins with her adolescence at Beacon Hill. The journals will address a wide range of topics covering some three-quarters of a century, including family and social rituals and interactions; the routines of "woman's work"; illnesses, both physical and mental, and their treatment; examples of cross-class and cross-race relations; and the larger world of business, politics, literature, reform, war, religion, and science. In detailing Dall's emotional, intellectual, and spiritual development, the journals also convey a compelling personal story.