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y separately published work icon A Prospectus for Rebecca's Diary single work   picture book   fantasy  
Alternative title: Rebecca's Diary; Rebecca's Diary Set
Issue Details: First known date: 1990... 1990 A Prospectus for Rebecca's Diary
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Rebecca’s Diary began as a text written for a 'visual project' and submitted for a City Art Institute theory class in November 1988. Oppen's starting point for the work was the Grimm’s story of Cinderella. Interested in exploring the person, the girl who might have been Cinderella, she asked the question, what would Cinderella have written if she had kept an diary? Proposing that Cinderella is nickname, Oppen has her write her real name in the diary, and hence the title.

Notes

  • Four sets of fifteen copies of the Prospectus for Rebecca's Diary (60 individual copies in all) were produced, with each set containing two different etchings.
  • Each set includes two coherent works - 'Rebecca’s Diary' and 'A Foreword to Rebecca’s Diary' and comprises lettered wrappers, text and two different hand coloured etchings. Each copy is signed by the artist. The foreword was printed by Nicholas Summers at Catnip Press.

  • Art book.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

First known date: 1990
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Related Works

Aschenputtel Trilogy Monica Oppen , Monica Oppen (illustrator), 1990 series - author novel

The three books in this trilogy are Rebecca's Diary (1990) Aschenputtel (aka Cinderella, 2011) and The Queen's Journal (2011). Aschenputtel, an 'adaptation' of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, forms the basis for the other two books.

As Oppen explains in 'Monica Oppen: Hits and Misses 2014': 'In 2011, I participated in an exhibition entitled Happily Ever After. Also based around themes of fairy tales, it required a sequel to a tale. Straightaway I knew it would be interesting to revisit Cinderella. I had one unbound copy of Rebecca’s Diary, which I’d left unbound so it could be exhibited. So I created the Aschenputtel Trilogy. Book one, the copy of Rebecca’s Diary was bound; book two, [taken] from a collection of Bros Grimm fairy tales, I scanned and printed the pages of Aschenputtel, which just happened to fit neatly into an eight page single section booklet; and [for] book three, I created a new work, The Queen’s Journal.

The Queen’s Journal has the same number of pages as Rebecca’s Diary [56], is handwritten and illustrated with drawings. It is a one off. Obviously working so directly, with no intention of making multiple copies, it was easy to work with a truth to the diary form. I mention it because it is much closer to how I imagined Rebecca’s Diary should have been.'
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Works about this Work

'Monica Oppen : Hits and Misses 2014' Monica Oppen , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Pretext : Creative Books in the Antipodes 2014;

In this paper, first presented at the the 2014 Codex Australia 2014, Monica Oppen talks the impilses that drove her make books and the challenges she encountered.
y separately published work icon Rebecca's Diary : Working Notes Monica Oppen , Redfern : Ant Press , 1990 9371702 1990 single work criticism

Working notes on the book, A Prospectus for Rebecca's Diary. Includes notes on the colouring of the images
'Monica Oppen : Hits and Misses 2014' Monica Oppen , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Pretext : Creative Books in the Antipodes 2014;

In this paper, first presented at the the 2014 Codex Australia 2014, Monica Oppen talks the impilses that drove her make books and the challenges she encountered.
y separately published work icon Rebecca's Diary : Working Notes Monica Oppen , Redfern : Ant Press , 1990 9371702 1990 single work criticism

Working notes on the book, A Prospectus for Rebecca's Diary. Includes notes on the colouring of the images
VIEW ALL WORKS ABOUT (2)
Last amended 13 Sep 2018 12:26:39
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