This comparative analysis draws on working-class autobiography, public and boarding school memoirs, and the canonical autobiographies by women and men in the United Kingdom to define subjectivity and value within social class and gender in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. Gagnier reconsiders traditional distinctions between mind and body, private desire and public good, aesthetics and utility, and fact and value in the context of everyday life.

This comparative analysis draws on working-class autobiography, public and boarding school memoirs, and the canonical autobiographies by women and men in the United Kingdom to define subjectivity and value within social class and gender in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. Gagnier reconsiders traditional distinctions between mind and body, private desire and public good, aesthetics and utility, and fact and value in the context of everyday life.