'I was born in Bethnal Green . . . a tiny scrap of humanity. I was my mother's seventh, and seven more were born after me . . . When I was ten years old I began to earn my own living.'

Told in the distinctive and memorable voices of working class women, Life as We Have Known It is a remarkable first-hand account of working lives at the turn of the last century. First published in association with the Women's Co-operative Guild in 1931, Life as We Have Known it is a unique evocation of a lost age, and a humbling testament to what Virginia Woolf called 'that inborn...

'I was married at twenty and a mother of three by twenty-three . . . When I look back at the first three years of my marriage, I wonder how I lived through it.'
When it was published in 1915 "No One But a Mother Knows" provoked a sensation - for the first time, working women were able to put across "their" view of maternity. These humbling autobiographical portraits are as valuable today as they were almost 100 years ago: in their own words these women tell of the horrors of bringing ten children into the world in as many years; of not being able to afford a doctor or nurse; of the...