Wartime Diary

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) was a French existentialist philosopher who employed a literary-philosophical method in her essays, including Ethics of Ambiguity (1946) and The Second Sex (1949), as well as in her novels, multivolume autobiography, and other works. Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, adopted daughter and literary executor of Simone de Beauvoir, is the editor of Lettres à Sartre and many other works by Beauvoir. Margaret A. Simons is a professor and chair of philosophy at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, and the author of Beauvoir and The Second Sex: Feminism, Race and the Origins of Existentialism. Anne Deing Cordero is professor emerita of French at George Mason University.

"What gives these notebooks additional zest and texture are allusions to an unexpectedly wide range of writers the diarist read during these searing days. . . . English readers are now afforded a very different portrait of the feminist philosopher approaching middle age in this well-annotated volume."--Publishers Weekly "Wartime Diary ensures that many more voyeurs will continue to stare admiringly. Feminist icon she will remain; ghastly exhibitionist she indubitably was."--San Francisco Chronicle "Wartime Diary is a snapshot of a woman at a defining moment in world history, as well as the defining moment in her own career and philosophical development."--The Gay and Lesbian Review

• Contents Foreword to the Beauvoir Series Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir Acknowledgments Preface to the French Edition xiii Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir Introduction Margaret A. Simons Notebook 1: September 1st to October 4, 1939 Notebook 2: October 5 to November 14, 1939 Notebook 3: November 15 to December 25, 1939 Notebook 4: December 26 to January 19, 1940 Notebook 5: January 20th to February 23rd, 1940 Notebook 6: June 9 to July 18, 1940 Notebook 7: September 20, 1940 to January 29, 1941 Works Cited Index