Abstract: This article examines the turn at the end of the nineteenth century from young dollplayers sharing secrets with dolls to keeping secrets from them. Using Alice James’s diary, the article argues that this practice is tied to the history and significance of diary-keeping and considers how Alice’s diary is engaged in similar forms of narrative refusal. This practice of narrative withholding in turn shapes Henry James’s late elusive style and representation of female thought.
Brianna Beehler (Sun,) studied this question.