A landmark in female historiography, this work first appeared in eight volumes between 1763 and 1783. Notable for her radical politics and her influence on American revolutionary ideology, Catharine Macaulay (1731 91) drew diligently on untapped seventeenth-century sources to craft her skilful yet inevitably biased narrative. Seen as a Whig response to David Hume's Tory perspective on English history, the early volumes made Macaulay a literary sensation in the 1760s. Later instalments were less rapturously received by those critics who took exception to her republican views. Both the product...

A landmark in female historiography, this work first appeared in eight volumes between 1763 and 1783. Notable for her radical politics and her influence on American revolutionary ideology, Catharine Macaulay (1731 91) drew diligently on untapped seventeenth-century sources to craft her skilful yet inevitably biased narrative. Seen as a Whig response to David Hume's Tory perspective on English history, the early volumes made Macaulay a literary sensation in the 1760s. Later instalments were less rapturously received by those critics who took exception to her republican views. Both the product...

A landmark in female historiography, this work first appeared in eight volumes between 1763 and 1783. Notable for her radical politics and her influence on American revolutionary ideology, Catharine Macaulay (1731 91) drew diligently on untapped seventeenth-century sources to craft her skilful yet inevitably biased narrative. Seen as a Whig response to David Hume's Tory perspective on English history, the early volumes made Macaulay a literary sensation in the 1760s. Later instalments were less rapturously received by those critics who took exception to her republican views. Both the product...

In eighteenth-century London, abandoned children were one of the social groups most affected by the harsh living conditions. Several charitable initiatives had endeavoured to alleviate the problem, not least the Foundling Hospital, of which Jonas Hanway (c.1712 86) was a governor. His tireless philanthropy and campaigning resulted in the 1762 Registers Bill, which required parishes to keep records of the poor children they looked after. In this tract, first published in 1766, Hanway uses information collected from these registers to demonstrate the appalling mortality rates of orphans in care...

John Evelyn (1620 1706), a founder member of the Royal Society, was a horticulturalist and author, best remembered for his diaries. Throughout his prolific writings he exhibits a strong distaste for the corruption of life at court. The beautiful and pious Margaret Godolphin (1652 78), a courtier more than thirty years Evelyn's junior, with whom he struck up an intense friendship in 1672, was maid of honour in the household of Queen Catherine, wife of King Charles II. To Evelyn she represented the antithesis of the corruption he despised. Written as 'a record of her perfections' following her...

First published in 1777 by the philanthropist John Howard (1726 90), this work was intended for as wide a readership as possible. Based on research from more than 300 visits to at least 230 different penal institutions on his extensive travels around Great Britain, Ireland and continental Europe, The State of the Prisons was a vital early contribution to the cause of penal reform. It provided, for the first time, systematic evidence of poor management and degrading conditions in institutions at home and abroad. Although Howard saw only limited changes to prisons in his lifetime, his labours...

Maria Fitzherbert (1756 1837) was already twice widowed when the young Prince of Wales began his pursuit of her in 1784. Initially refusing his offer of marriage, she eventually accepted it and the couple were wed in secret the following year. Though legitimate in her eyes, the union was invalid under the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, and controversial because of her Catholicism. A posthumous attack on her faith and morals, penned by Lord Holland in his Memoirs of the Whig Party, provoked her close friend Charles Langdale (1787 1868) into publishing this defence in 1856. A champion of Catholic...

In this 1768 publication, Joseph Priestley (1733 1804) expounds his political philosophy, revealed in part through his earlier writings on education and theology. While teaching at the dissenting academy at Warrington, he had argued against a scheme of national education in his Essay on a Course of Liberal Education (1765), included and expanded on in his Miscellaneous Observations Relating to Education (1778), which has been reissued in this series. Here, he explains that freedoms of education and religion promote free discourse, which is essential for social progress. Such discourse is only...

Between 1787 and 1798, the agricultural writer and land agent William Marshall (1745 1818) published a number of works on the rural economies of England, covering Norfolk, his native Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, the Midlands and the South. This two-volume study appeared in 1796 and investigated the farming, geography, public works and produce of districts in Devon, Somerset, Dorset and Cornwall. Volume 1 looks in detail at West Devon, the eastern parts of Cornwall, and the South Hams. The coverage includes aspects of the laws surrounding land ownership, farming implements peculiar to the...

Famed for his masterful oratory and fearless criticism of parliamentary opponents, William Pitt the Elder (1708 78) distinguished himself through the strong leadership he provided during Britain's struggle against France in the Seven Years' War. Edited by his great-grandsons and first published between 1838 and 1840, this four-volume collection presents nearly forty years' worth of letters to and from the great statesman. Each volume also contains a useful list of the principal officers of state for the period covered, along with facsimile plates of letters and signatures by some of Pitt's...