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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.'
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Related Works
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y
A Prospectus for Rebecca's Diary
Rebecca's Diary;
Rebecca's Diary Set
Monica Oppen
(illustrator),
1990
Redfern
:
Ant Press
,
1990
9371353
1990
single work
picture book
fantasy
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.
