Women Alone: Spinsters in Britain 1660-1850

Women Alone: Spinsters in Britain 1660-1850 by Hill, Dr. Bridget. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780300088205.

1ST EDITION 1ST PRINTING, hardcover in dust jacket. Published by Yale University Press 2001. Publishers statement: "We know very little about spinsters in earlier times, for the stigma attached to the unmarried state often rendered these women almost invisible. Now this fascinating book opens a window into the lives of English spinsters in the mid- seventeenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, assessing the opportunities open to them and the restrictions placed upon them within different social classes, occupations and periods. Bridget Hill examines how often spinsters were able to earn enough money to live independently, what provision the Poor Law made for them if they did not, whether extreme poverty ledto their involvement in crime and prostitution, and if they stayed in the parental home, what kind of lives they led. She looks at the part single women played in religious organizations and the role of friendship and letter writing in their daily lives."