Victorian Women

While the aristocratic women of the Victorian age have long preoccupied the popular imagination, seldom have women of other classes been granted a voice. Victorian Women is the first book to allow women of all classes to render their own lives, in their own words, from birth to old age, in the long nineteenth century between the French Revolution and the First World War.

In letters, memoirs, and other contemporary sources these women describe their childhood and education; courtship, marriage and homemaking; sex and motherhood; marital breakdown; widowhood; and their pastimes and entertainments. Their voices, heretofore drowned by the cacophony of louder, often male versions of history, speak to us with clarity and poignancy, revealing strength of feeling, courage, and humor. We find in this book the unmarried woman worker, the single mother, the prostitute, as well as those who fought for professional recognition against the regiments of the church, government, and law.

Booknews

A reprint of a book first published in 1993 by John Murray, UK. Perkins (women's history, Northwestern U.) uses letters, memoirs, and other revealing, first-hand sources to describe the social conditions of women of all classes during the Victorian era. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Joan Perkin teaches women's history at Northwestern University. She is the author of It's Never Too late: A Practical Guide to Continuing Education for Women of all Ages, and Women and Marriage in Nineteenth-Century England.