The content of this book is up to the author`s usual standard - excellent; so why the awful rating? This edition is almost unreadable. the type is almost smudged, the paper quality is of the cheapest imaginable. The binding makes it impossible to open the book to a comfortable position without cracking the spine. As a product it is not worth 10% of what I paid for it. By all means buy the book, just NOT this edition.

Amanda Vickery's book is about the life of genteel (note that genteel does not equal aristocratic) women in the 18th and early part of the 19th century. It is divided into seven chapters that roughly coincide with major events and duties in a lady's life (courtship, marriage, motherhood, householding, shopping and entertainment). Vickery's thesis is that women were not marginalized in society during the 18th century, and did not operate in separate spheres leading up to the Victorian era. (She does not touch the Victorian era at all.) She proves this point well by sharing anecdotes from letters and books, newspapers and prints. But the book is also littered with jewels of information about all aspects of female life.

My favorite chapter was that on childbirth and motherhood. There is a really fascinating excerpt on how midwives were slowly replaced by "male midwives," and then by physicians. "Ladies of quality" in the 18th and 19th centuries are given the short end of the stick as mothers. The belief persists that they were rarely invested in their children's lives; this is based mainly on the fact that many did not breast feed and apparently were too busy leading very busy lives to bother with their children. (If that is the criteria, then God only knows how mothers today would rate.) Vickery proves this completely wrong, which is gratifying, to say the least.

Vickery's book can be slow-going at times due to the large number of citations that she makes in it, but that is the nature of an academic work. It is also full of interesting tidbits; for example, there was a ladies' debating society in the late 1700s which, among other things, debated whether a woman pledging obedience to her husband in her wedding vows required her to always follow his orders. It is definitely more in-depth in its material than many other books, so if you enjoy delving into history, this is for you.

This book contains a wealth of information, and I certainly enjoyed reading it. The author bases her findings on her study of the letters and diaries of a group of women in Northern England in the last half of the 18th century. From these sources, she attempts to draw conclusions about the women's attitudes and daily lives. I haven't read much straight history, other than textbooks, so what I'm about to say may not be worth much, but her conclusions made sense to me. She referenced other historians freely, and explained how her research either supported or contradicted common assumptions about the period.

I think that the sections that were most interesting to me personally were those where she talked about marriage and housekeeping. I had a vague idea that respectable women were expected to have certain skills, but the sheer scope of what these ladies did just to keep their house in working order is incredible to me. And of course, they did this while bearing and raising children, keeping up with their social contacts, and doing all of this with the appearance of ease. I have newfound respect for those ladies. These were no pretty, ornamental blushing violets. They knew the rules of the social world they were expected to abide by, and they used them for all they were worth. One of the things that I really liked about this book was the amount of actual text from the primary sources that was included. I found myself blinking in surprise, and laughed out loud more than once at some witty observation one of the correspondents made. These women were smart, funny, shrewd, human. That's one of the most valuable things for me about books like this. Besides giving me all sorts of interesting little details, it makes the people seem more like, well, people and less like dead names on a page.

This book contains a wealth of information, and I certainly enjoyed reading it. The author bases her findings on her study of the letters and diaries of a group of women in Northern England in the last half of the 18th century. From these sources, she attempts to draw conclusions about the women's attitudes and daily lives. I haven't read much straight history, other than textbooks, so what I'm about to say may not be worth much, but her conclusions made sense to me. She referenced other historians freely, and explained how her research either supported or contradicted common assumptions about the period.

I think that the sections that were most interesting to me personally were those where she talked about marriage and housekeeping. I had a vague idea that respectable women were expected to have certain skills, but the sheer scope of what these ladies did just to keep their house in working order is incredible to me. And of course, they did this while bearing and raising children, keeping up with their social contacts, and doing all of this with the appearance of ease. I have newfound respect for those ladies. These were no pretty, ornamental blushing violets. They knew the rules of the social world they were expected to abide by, and they used them for all they were worth. One of the things that I really liked about this book was the amount of actual text from the primary sources that was included. I found myself blinking in surprise, and laughed out loud more than once at some witty observation one of the correspondents made. These women were smart, funny, shrewd, human. That's one of the most valuable things for me about books like this. Besides giving me all sorts of interesting little details, it makes the people seem more like, well, people and less like dead names on a page.