The author of A Romantic Education reflects on how memory and imagination play a role in autobiographical writing, recalling various times in her life that have impacted her career as a writer. Reprint. In this timely gathering, Patricia Hampl, one of our most elegant practitioners, "weaves personal stories and grand ideas into shimmering bolts of prose" (Minneapolis Star Tribune) as she explores the autobiographical writing that has enchanted or bedeviled her. Subjects engaging Hampl's attention include her family's response to her writing, the ethics of writing about family and friends, St. Augustine's Confessions, reflections on reading Walt Whitman during the Vietnam War, and an early experience reviewing Sylvia Plath. The word that unites the impulse within all the pieces is "Remember!"-a command that can be startling. For to remember is to make a pledge: to the indelible experience of personal perception, and to history itself. To the Reader 11(4) Red Sky in the Morning 15(6) Memory and Imagination 21(17) The Mayflower Moment: Reading Whitman during the Vietnam War 38(23) What She Couldn't Tell 61(22) Czeslaw Milosz and Memory 83(20) A Book Sealed with Seven Seals: Edith Stein 103(26) The Smile of Accomplishment: Sylvia Plath's Ambition 129(37) The Invention of Autobiography: Augustine's Confessions 166(18) Reviewing Anne Frank 184(11) The Need to Say It 195(13) Other People's Secrets 208(23) Acknowledgments 231