Product Description

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. These women were not confined in their homes but enjoyed expanding horizons and an array of emerging public arenas, the author shows.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #256631 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 436 pages

Amazon.com Review
Winner of the Longman History Today Prize in 1998, Amanda Vickery's The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England is an outstanding study of a crucial period in modern women's history. Roy Porter described this book as "the most important thing in English feminist history in the last ten years." Readers familiar with the feminist analysis of women's lives in the late 18th to mid-19th century will find some of the commonplaces of that viewpoint called into question: the rise of "separate spheres" of male and female experience, for example, or the social construction of motherhood in the 18th century. At once scholarly and readable, The Gentleman's Daughter takes its readers on a vivid and well-illustrated tour of "genteel" Georgian society, bringing that world to life through what Vickery identifies as the "terms set out in their own letters by genteel women." Those terms structure the seven sections of the book: "Gentility", "Love and Duty', "Fortitude and Resignation" (which includes a notable discussion of the experience of pregnancy), "Prudent Economy", "Elegance", "Civility and Vulgarity", and "Propriety". "Our battles were not necessarily theirs," Vickery reminds us, striking her convincing balance between a feminist interest in the restriction and rebellion of women's lives and their own ways of finding meaning and pleasure in the gender distinctions of Georgian culture. --Vicky Lebeau, Amazon.co.uk

From Library Journal
This meticulously researched social history should be welcomed by specialists in British and European women's history. Vickery (British women's history, Univ. of London) challenges the standard argument that once the industrial revolution took production out of the home, women's lives were marginalized in the domestic sphere. Using the letters, diaries, and account books of more than 100 women from the "genteel" classes, she theorizes that women's activities actually expanded as they involved themselves in new areas of community life. Indeed, she concludes that the struggles of the Victorian suffragettes may have stemmed not from a sense of oppression but from a desire to expand the gains of their Georgian predecessors. Unfortunately, Vickery's insistence on proving her provocative thesis overwhelms the richness of the descriptive material she presents: there is good information here on household management, servants, material culture, shopping and consumption, and female attitudes on courtship, pregnancy, motherhood, and child rearing. Recommended for academic libraries.?Marie Marmo Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., Livingston, NJ
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Well written, with a wealth of historical detail.
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.

Academic but interesting and enlightening
This book reminds me of reading someone's doctoral dissertation--but that isn't meant to be an insult, just a comment on the writing style (academic). We are introduced to real women and their real situations by way of their letters and diaries. It is full of very interesting stories of a few related women in 18th century England. My only wish would be that the book could have been written to include women from other areas in England--really just more women in general. I appreciate the author's work in this under-researched area and hope it inspires more research in the future.
I have long wished that I could have lived in Jane Austen's world (with epidurals). But after reading this I realize that I would rather keep my appliances and modern medicine and my legal rights. I appreciated this book because it broke me of my misconceptions about any kind of "romantic" life of the women of this "almost leisure" class, as another reviewer called it. They were at the mercy of their husbands, their social situation and fate. Very thought provoking for a Jane Austen fan like myself.

The lives of Country English Women in the 18th Century
I'm not sure whether to give this book 3 or 4 stars. The author presents a very academic overview of the life of rural Georgian women in England in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

A lot of original research has been done for this book and it shows in it's content. The author highlights the lack of real research that has been done on the lives of women in this period. However, despite a well timed re-assesment of the lives of these women, this is essentially an academic work.

It highlights the fact that things have never been as bad as many other (feminist) books make out - in essence Jane Austin shows us close to the real world as people lived it in her novels.

This book is dry to read, but full of many every day facts for those interested in the "real" lives of 18th century country women.