"Kate Coventry: An Autobiography" by G. J. Whyte-Melville Written in the form of an autobiography, this tale takes readers into the mind of a young woman. Being a girl in the world is a difficult and tumultuous thing. However, with all the turmoil, there's also much adventure and opportunity for creative growth and finding one's place with the options given. High-society, cultural norms, and breaking them to be one's own person are on display in this text.

'Kate Coventry - An Autobiography' is a first-person novel revolving around the life of a woman named Kate Coventry. She is quite unhappy with her station in life, and is especially aware of how unfairly she is treated in comparison to the men, as can be seen from her thoughts on the matter: "But it's quite different with men. They give in to us about everything if we only insist—and it's our own fault if we don't insist; for, of course, if they find us complying and ready to oblige, why, there's no end to their audacity. However, they do try to keep us down as much as they can. Now there's that very exercise of riding that they are so proud of. They get us a side-saddle, as they call it, of enormous weight and inconvenience, on which they plant pommels enough to impale three women; they place us in an attitude from which it is next to impossible to control a horse should he be violent, and in a dress which ensures a horrible accident should he fall; added to which, they constantly give us the worst quadruped in the stable; and yet, with all these drawbacks, such is our own innate talent and capacity, we ride many an impetuous steed in safety and comfort that a man would find a dangerous and uncontrollable mount."

An exploration of the commodification of autobiography 1820-1860 in relation to shifting fictional representations of identity.

Reproduction of the original: Kate Coventry by G.J. Whyte-Melville