Better known for her five volume portrait of English rural life, Our Village, Mary Russell Mitford (1787 1855) was one of the most prolific female writers of her day. Part critical essay, part autobiography, Recollections consists of a series of sketches on and selections from Mitford's favourite authors, stemming from her desire 'to make others relish a few favourite writers as heartily as I have relished them myself'. The collection is arranged according to Mitford's own eclectic system of categorization including 'fashionable poets', 'cavalier poets', and 'poetry that poets love'. This...

Better known for her five volume portrait of English rural life, Our Village, Mary Russell Mitford (1787 1855) was one of the most prolific female writers of her day. Part critical essay, part autobiography, Recollections consists of a series of sketches on and selections from Mitford's favourite authors, stemming from her desire 'to make others relish a few favourite writers as heartily as I have relished them myself'. The collection is arranged according to Mitford's own eclectic system of categorization including 'fashionable poets', 'cavalier poets', and 'poetry that poets love'. This...

Alice Thornton (1626 1707) was a middle-class woman who was best known for her autobiography describing the English Civil War and its effects on her life. She was the daughter of Christopher Wandesford (1592 1640), Lord Deputy of Ireland, and enjoyed a privileged upbringing. His death, followed by the Civil War, caused a crisis in the family, who eventually settled in Yorkshire in considerably straitened circumstances. This volume, first published in 1873 by the Surtees Society, contains the first published edition of Thornton's autobiography, which provides fascinating details of her life....

Emily Pfeiffer (1827 1890) was a British poet, writer and feminist. Best known for her poetry and sonnets, Pfeiffer also published essays and articles for numerous publications addressing the status of women in contemporary society. This volume, first published in 1888, contains Pfeiffer's analysis of social attitudes towards higher education and professional work for women. She explores in detail the social attitudes which discouraged women from attempting higher education, and describes and refutes contemporary medical opinions concerning the supposed dangers to health women faced in...

Francis Scougal was one of the pseudonyms of Felicia Skene (1821 1899), a writer and philanthropist, who also wrote fiction and religious works. She was particularly noted for her work with 'fallen women' and in the campaign for penal reform. This 1889 work was the result of ten years prison-visiting at Oxford Gaol. She argues for greater emphasis on rehabilitation of prisoners: they will be bound to re-offend if they are treated inhumanly while imprisoned and as outcasts when released. She argues against mandatory sentencing, on the grounds that individual cases cannot be treated...

This thorough and accessible late-nineteenth century domestic guidebook provided an indispensable companion to managing the British household in India.

Lady (Augusta) Gregory (1852 1932) was a dramatist and folklorist. Along with the poet W. B. Yeats she was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and co-founded the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. Born Isabella Augusta Persse in County Galway, she belonged to the Anglo-Irish ascendancy, which was closely associated with colonial rule. She married Sir William Gregory in 1880. Her conversion to Irish cultural nationalism began after the death of her husband and was heavily influenced by her visit in 1892 to Inisheer, one of the Aran Islands, where she learnt Irish and the Hiberno-English...

A fascinating contemporary account of Indian society in the 1830s, at the height of the East India Company's power.

A fascinating contemporary account of Indian society in the 1830s, at the height of the East India Company's power.

A fascinating contemporary account of Indian society in the 1830s, at the height of the East India Company's power.