When Christine de Pizan described herself in 1405 as `femme a part", she expressed a divided sense of identity that has echoed throughout women"s lifewriting up to the present day. In these three words Christine captures the uneasy relationship between the female self that is a part of communities and the self that stands apart from them. Christine anticipates Kant"s concept of unsociable sociability in which an inclination to associate with others weighs against a strong propensity to isolate oneself from others. It is this complex sense of self-seeking to belong yet yearning for solitude and distinction-that is at the heart of this volume"s exploration of women"s lifewriting. With its cross-cultural and transhistorical perspective, the volume makes a distinctive contribution to current debates on women"s lifewriting. Its emphasis on unsociable sociability offers a timely, provocative response to the established notion of the female self as a relational subject.