| The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England Contributor(s): Vickery, Amanda (Author) |
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ISBN: 0300102224 ISBN-13: 9780300102222 Publisher: Yale University Press OUR PRICE: $27.72 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: August 2003 Annotation: What was the life of an eighteenth-century British genteel woman like? This lively book, based on letters, diaries, and account books of over one hundred middle class women, transforms our understanding of the position of women in Georgian England. "(Vickery) has found a gold mine in the realm of women's history: letters and pocket-book diaries kept by the daughters, wives, and mothers of gentlemen of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, allowing us to hear their voices as they experience courtship, marriage, motherhood, and widowing, and to enjoy direct accounts of their domestic and social preoccupations.... Vickery's book is full of fine details and discoveries." -- Claire Tomalin, Times Literary Supplement |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Women's Studies - History | Europe - Great Britain - General |
| Dewey: 940.27 |
| LCCN: 97045792 |
| Series: Yale Nota Bene |
| Physical Information: 1.12" H x 5.25" W x 7.7" (0.78 lbs) 448 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 18th Century - Cultural Region - British Isles - Sex & Gender - Feminine |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: What was the life of an eighteenth-century British genteel woman like? In this lively and controversial book, Amanda Vickery invokes women's own accounts of their intimate and their public lives to argue that in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the scope of female experience did not diminish--in fact, quite the reverse. Refuting the common understanding that in Georgian times the daughters of merchants, the wives of lawyers, and the sisters of gentlemen lost female freedoms and retreated into their homes, Vickery shows that these women experienced expanding social and intellectual horizons. As they embraced a world far beyond the boundaries of their own parishes through their tireless writing and ravenous reading, genteel women also enjoyed an array of emerging new public arenas--assembly rooms, concert series, theater seasons, circulating libraries, day-time lectures, urban walks, and pleasure gardens. Based on the letters, diaries, and account books of over one hundred women from commercial, professional, and gentry families, this book transforms our understanding of the position of women in Georgian England. In their own words, they tell of their sometimes humorous, sometimes moving experiences and desires, and of their many roles, including kinswoman, wife, mother, housekeeper, consumer, hostess, and member of polite society. By the nineteenth century, family duties continued to dominate women's lives, yet, Vickery contends, the public profile of privileged women had reached unprecedented heights. |