Volume IV: The Irish Book in English 1800-1891 details the story of the book in Ireland during the nineteenth century, when Ireland was integrated into the United Kingdom. The chapters in this volume explore book production and distribution and the differing of ways in which publishing existed in Dublin, Belfast, and the provinces.

The author offers a reassessment of how women's experience of work in 18th- century England was affected by industrialization and other elements of economic, social and technological change.; This study focuses on the household, the most important unit of production in the 18th century. Hill examines the work done by the women of the household, not only in "housework" but also in agriculture and manufacturing, and explains what women lost as the household's independence as a unit of economic production was undermined.; Considering the whole range of activities in which women were involved - including many occupations unrecorded in censuses which have, therefore, been largely ignored by historians - Hill charts the increasing sexual division of labour and highlights its implications. She also discusses the role of service in husbandry and apprenticeship, as sources of training for women, and the consequences of their decline.; The final part of the book considers how the changing nature of women's work influenced courtship, marriage and relations between the sexes. Among the topics discussed are the importance of the women's contribution to setting up and maintaining a household; labouring women's attitudes to marriage and divorce and the customary alternatives to them; and the role of spinsters and widows. The author concludes by asking to what extent the industrial revolution improved the overall position of women and the opportunities open to them.; This series aims to re-establish women's history, and to challenge the assumptions of much mainstream history. Focusing on the modern period and encouraging perspectives from other disciplines, it seeks to concentrate upon areas of focal importance in the history of Britain and continental Europe.; Bridget Hill is the author of "Eighteenth-Century Women: An Anthology" and "The First English Feminist".

These volumes will present, in some cases for the first time, the lives and works of a coterie of Nonconformist women writers from the West Country.

How did people learn to write letters in the eighteenth century? Among other books, letter-writing manuals provided a possible solution. Although more than 160 editions can be traced for the eighteenth century, most manuals were largely intended for men. As a consequence, when The Ladies Complete Letter-Writer was released in London in 1763, it was the first manual to be exclusively destined for women in eighteenth-century Britain. Even though it was published anonymously, several elements tend to show that it must have been edited by Edward Kimber. It was reprinted in Dublin in 1763 and in London in 1765 and largely circulated. The reasons for its success may have come from its concern in epistolary rhetoric, its original organisation, or the entertainment provided by examples coming from different sources, among which letters by Eliza Haywood, Samuel Richardson, Mary Collier, or the Marquise de Lambert. It also provided women with a variety of subjects which were supposed to be part of their sphere of interest, and others which were not, thus questioning a number of pre-conceived ideas on women and their way of writing with or without propriety. Unedited since 1765, the manual is now presented with introduction, notes and two indices focusing on the issues of sources, society and epistolary writing.