[.ca] The Gentleman's Daughter: Women`s Lives in Georgian England (ISBN 0300102224)

From Amazon.com:
Winner of the Longman History Today Prize in 1998, Amanda Vickery's The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England is an outstanding study of a crucial period in modern women's history. Roy Porter described this book as "the most important thing in English feminist history in the last ten years." Readers familiar with the feminist analysis of women's lives in the late 18th to mid-19th century will find some of the commonplaces of that viewpoint called into question: the rise of "separate spheres" of male and female experience, for example, or the social construction of motherhood in the 18th century. At once scholarly and readable, The Gentleman's Daughter takes its readers on a vivid and well-illustrated tour of "genteel" Georgian society, bringing that world to life through what Vickery identifies as the "terms set out in their own letters by genteel women." Those terms structure the seven sections of the book: "Gentility", "Love and Duty', "Fortitude and Resignation" (which includes a notable discussion of the experience of pregnancy), "Prudent Economy", "Elegance", "Civility and Vulgarity", and "Propriety". "Our battles were not necessarily theirs," Vickery reminds us, striking her convincing balance between a feminist interest in the restriction and rebellion of women's lives and their own ways of finding meaning and pleasure in the gender distinctions of Georgian culture. --Vicky Lebeau, Amazon.co.uk

Will change the way I read 18th c. novels:
More scholarship than entertainment (read: dry), but definitely worth the effort of reading for the wealth of detail it provides. As an amateur Austen student (read: junkie), I know parts of this book will come back to me next time I bury my head in _Mansfield Park_.

The Gentleman's Daughter Is Not Quite Up The Mark:
Although "The Gentleman's Daughter" explored an interesting time in the life of women it was too general for me to feel completely absorbed in the book. I felt that I was looking at an interesting painting from across the room and I couldn't get close enough to really know the subject. In no way does the book compare to "The Aristocrats" which pulls you into the life of it's subjects. Overall it was a disappointment although I did learn a little more in general of life for women in the Georgian era.

Academic but interesting and enlightening:
This book reminds me of reading someone's doctoral dissertation--but that isn't meant to be an insult, just a comment on the writing style (academic). We are introduced to real women and their real situations by way of their letters and diaries. It is full of very interesting stories of a few related women in 18th century England. My only wish would be that the book could have been written to include women from other areas in England--really just more women in general. I appreciate the author's work in this under-researched area and hope it inspires more research in the future. I have long wished that I could have lived in Jane Austen's world (with epidurals). But after reading this I realize that I would rather keep my appliances and modern medicine and my legal rights. I appreciated this book because it broke me of my misconceptions about any kind of "romantic" life of the women of this "almost leisure" class, as another reviewer called it. They were at the mercy of their husbands, their social situation and fate. Very thought provoking for a Jane Austen fan like myself.