Women and History: Early Modern England 1600-1800 Ukkynubated Texts

In this book, the first in a projected series, Frith has assembled an unusual selection of writings about and by women of the 17th and 18th centuries. Its 11 entries confront the ambiguity of women in history: what little was written is generally by male authors, and the tiny portion actually written by women usually projects the expected conventions of the era. Even court transcripts were written by male clerks (whose records reflected their own perceptions of women); and what the clerks recorded, Frith posits, was ``the face these women were presenting... the face they thought would be acceptable in an all-male forum.'' The book's second half, ``The Real and the Ideal,'' focuses on several women of the era (Marie Cavendish, Georgiana Spencer and others), yet Women & History's first section is why this book is a must-read and an outstanding addition to women's studies and scholarship. These entries demonstrate the very real and severe limitations imposed by gender, and two chapters, ``Infanticide Trials at the Old Bailey'' and ``Wife-Beating in the Eighteenth Century,'' are shocking records of women's subjugation, as compelling as they are horrific. Unlike Pride and Prejudice or Vanity Fair, this volume depicts the seamy, harrowing side of life suffered by the majority of women, not the folly and foibles of the privileged few. (Nov.)