Marie Bashkirtseff: the journal of a young artist, 1860-1884

I'm reading the "New and Revised" edition of 1919. My understanding is that there's a good, more recent, complete e-edition out (from Fonthill Press), an edition which restores all the "rampantly expurgated and cleansed" bits that her mother took out before allowing the work's publication.

Oh yes. Given the mischief I've read already on the page, I'm definitely intrigued to dip into Fonthill's unexpurgated bits, but... I'm also curious about the text that became a bestseller in Europe in 1887 (three years after Bashkirtseff's death)--the text, evidently, that held a beloved place of pride on the shelves of many a young educated woman of a certain class in the years before and after WWI.

Thus far, the book has lived up to my expectations. So far, Marie is 16 years old, and I have moved only a little on from her early entries as a precocious 13 year old. But what an odd privilege, to read the words of this petted young woman, as she rackets around some fine estates in Italy and France:

[May—in Nice]
Paris—At last I have found what I longed for without knowing what it was! Life, that is Paris! Paris, that is life.... Nice—I regard Nice as an exile....

[September—in Paris]
Here there is neither morning nor evening. In the morning they are sweeping; in the evening the innumerable lights irritate my nerves... While at Nice one is comfortable! It is as if one were in a nest surrounded by mountains, not too high or too bare... I love Nice. Nice is my country...

Something tells me that both Nice and Paris must have been nice... in 1873, when Marie was living there.

Marie is known best these days for her journal, which she herself predicted... and somewhat for her paintings. She did some very fine paintings--not enough of which are on the internet (as of 2017). Here's hoping that will be rectified in the next couple of years.  I very much like these portraits.