Reviews

'the best and most unbiased kind of women's history ... careful scholarship with the readability of novels'
The Times Literary Supplement
' Jalland's book strikingly illustrates the way break-through in research can result from suddenly perceiving significance in material that others have lightly discarded ... The outcome is a historical sociology without jargon and its lumps of undigested statistics, a social anthropology without vague speculation, and a women's history that rests secure on a close and sensitive study of the interaction between the sexes. This is one of the best books on
women's history to be published for years.'
The London Review of Books
'based on a close study of more than 50 British family archives ... Jalland's interest in the private dimension has uncovered an invaluable record of elite women's - and men's - private experience, which students will draw on for years to come ... If the book raises more questions than it answers, that is a product of its immense research and fascinating content, which should stimulate further exploration of the wealth of material uncovered by Pat
Jalland.'
Historical Studies
'crammed with information which will force us to rethink many of our long-held assumptions'
Philippa Levine, Australian Feminist Studies
'The history of women in society receives a boost from this enthralling book'
Philippa Toomey, The Tablet