The figure of the governess is very familiar from nineteenth-century literature. Much less is known about the governess in reality. This book is the first rounded exploration of what the life of the home schoolroom was actually like. Drawing on original diaries and a variety of previously undiscovered sources, Kathryn Hughes describes why the period 1840-80 was the classic age of governesses. She examines their numbers, recruitment, teaching methods, social position and prospects. The governess provides a key to the central Victorian concept of the lady. Her education consisted of a series of accomplishments designed to attract a husband able to keep her in the style to which she had become accustomed from birth. Becoming a governess was the only acceptable way of earning money open to a lady whose family could not support her in leisure. Being paid to educate another woman's children set in play a series of social and emotional tensions. The governess was a surrogate mother, who was herself childless, a young woman whose marriage prospects were restricted, and a family member who was sometimes mistaken for a servant.

On Diary is the second collection in English of the groundbreaking and profoundly influential work of one of the best-known and provocative theorists of autobiography and diary. Ranging from the diary’s historical origins to its pervasive presence on the Internet, from the spiritual journey of the sixteenth century to the diary of Anne Frank, and from the materials and methods of diary writing to the question of how diaries end, these essays display Philippe Lejeune’s expertise, eloquence, passion, and humor as a commentator on the functions, practices, and significance of keeping or reading a diary. Lejeune is a leading European critic and theorist of diary and autobiography. His landmark essay, "The Autobiographical Pact," has shaped life writing studies for more than thirty years, and his many books and essays have repeatedly opened up new vistas for scholarship. As Michael Riffaterre notes, "Lejeune’s work on autobiography is the most original, powerful, effective approach to a difficult subject. . . . His style is very personal, lively. It grabs the reader as scholarship rarely does. Lejeune’s erudition and methodology are impeccable." Two substantial introductory essays by Jeremy Popkin and Julie Rak place Lejeune’s work within its critical and theoretical traditions and comment on his central importance within the fields of life writing, literary genetic studies, and cultural studies.

These are the edited (i.e. transcribed, annotated and indexed) diaries of the diplomat Sir Ernest Satow (1843-1929) for the six and a half years during which he was posted to Montevideo (Uruguay) and then Morocco. Throughout the period his ultimate goal was promotion to Minister in Japan, which he achieved in 1895. This edition includes a Foreword by diplomatic historian Professor T.G. Otte. The original diaries are in the National Archives (UK). Published for the first time on lulu.com.

We only know a surprisingly small number of eighteenth-century women as personalities. This is true, in particular, of women who had to work for their living. Which is why the survival of the letters and journals of Miss Agnes Porter, dating from 1788 to 1814, constitutes an unusually important find. Miss Porter, the daughter of a Church of England clergyman, was born in 1752 with brains but not looks or wealth. Although she would have liked to marry, her various hopes ended in disappointment. She therefore had to earn her living as a governess, working principally in teaching the daughters and grand-daughter of the second Earl of Ilchester. Agnes Porter was neither morbidly religious, as were many of her Victorian successors, nor did she spend her time dwelling on the unfairness of her situation. She emerges as a intelligent, warm and likeable woman ready to make the best of her lot. Joanna Martin has provided a substantial introduction which sets Miss Porter in her historical context. A Governess in the Age of Jane Austen is a detailed, and very early, portrait of a woman entering a profession.

Rumored to be more than just a murderer… Lord Ambrose Ravenner, Marquess Blackraven, has been shunned by the whole of society following the death of his wife and the shocking events that transpired at her funeral which resulted in his mother-in-law’s demise. But shunned or not, he needs an heir and that means getting himself a wife. Braving society, he enters Almack’s, the very heart of the marriage mart. And there he meets the one woman who braves the censure of everyone who matters by speaking to him openly and claiming a purely fabricated acquaintance with him… A spinster courting scandal… Miss Mathilda Featherington is all the things society despises in a woman. She is plain, she is plump, she is poor and she is unmarried. In short, they would pity her if they were not so utterly confounded by the fact that she doesn’t have any desire to change anything about herself. Except her circumstances have altered, and rather than just being poor, now her entire family faces the possibility of debtor’s prison if she does not find a husband who possesses both a fortune and a generous nature. But neither of those things enters her mind when she sees the darkly handsome Marquess. Instead, she acts purely on impulse and makes a muddle of everything. Banished to a country house party to avert scandal after her impetuousness at Almack’s, Mathilda has been instructed by her aunt, in no uncertain terms, that she is to flirt shamelessly and make a match with Sir Wilbur Martens, a grotesque man more than a decade older than her father. But Mathilda’s mother has other plans… and they include the Marquess. But Mrs. Featherington isn’t the only one who is meddling. Amrbose’s aunts, Athena and Minerva, have conducted a love spell on his behalf… and muddled it horribly. Mathilda is supposed to make a match with Sir Wilbur. Miss Abbingford is determined to make a match with the Marquess. The aunts have no notion which of the young ladies is the soulmate they conjured for their nephew. But by fate, destiny, magic or a matchmaking mama, Ambrose and Mathilda only have eyes for one another…

This work offers a new portrayal of Queen Maria Carolina of Naples as a woman of power with weaknesses and ambitions, and analyzes the Queen's actions, from her political choices to her alliance and betrayals. A careful examination of the period (1781-1785) covered by the diary shows that the daily life of the Queen and offers key evidence of her political acumen and her personal relationships. Recca cross-analyses unpublished personal documents, which include the integral diary and private correspondence. The book focuses on the political influence that Queen Maria Carolina wielded beside her husband, King Ferdinand IV, and the criticism that has been made by contemporary historians and intellectuals who have often tended to discredit the sovereign for personal rather than political reasons.

As headmistress of the Scarfield Academy for Young Ladies, Miss Charlotte Boscastle is tasked with keeping her charges free from notoriety. But when Charlotte's diary goes missing, she can't imagine having her most intimate secrets fall into the wrong hands. Although the confessions in the diary he found spark his interest, the Duke of Wynfield has every intention of returning the journal. But when Gideon's encounter with Charlotte takes on an unexpectedly passionate nature, his indiscretion causes a scandal that only marriage can cure...