Introduction

Stanley Rice was born in London in 1905, and (in the quote entitling this chapter) he self-effacingly declared that his was an ordinary average life: He went to school, worked various jobs, started a business, got married, and had children. It was presumably for this reason that Stanley was unsure whether the record of his life would be of interest to any reader. However, Stanley and the other ninety-nine autobiographers studied here grew up during the twentieth century, a period which undeniably bore witness to a multiplicity of notable events, including the First World War, the Second World War, and the Great Depression.