Tag: lives

WSG member Sara Read’s new book: Maids, Wives and Widows

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Sara Read, Front cover, Maids, Wives and Widows (Pen & Sword, 2015)

Following on from Julie Peakman’s new biography of the Georgian courtesan Peg Plunkett, WSG would also like to highlight WSG member (and WSG’s chief Twitterer) Sara Read’s new book Maids, Wives and Widows: Exploring Early Modern Women’s Lives 1540-1740, which came out in May.  It is available from Pen & Sword books, and for a limited time is only £15.99 (rrp £19.99).  Maids, Wives and Widows explores the everyday lives of early modern women, from menstruation, childbirth, and bodily care, to employment, literature, and food and drink.

Sara is a Lecturer in English at Loughborough University.  She is the author of Menstruation and the Female Body in Early Modern England (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and her latest project investigates female obesity in early modern England.  She co-edits the fantastic Early Modern Medicine blog with Dr Jennifer Evans.

WSG member Julie Peakman’s new book: Peg Plunkett

Julie Peakman, front cover of Peg Plunkett (Quercus, 2015)
Julie Peakman, front cover of Peg Plunkett (Quercus, 2015)

Long-time WSG member Julie Peakman’s latest book is out this month! Peg Plunkett: Memoirs of a Whore is published by Quercus and is available from all good bookshops and online for £20. Peg tells the story of one of the Georgian era’s most famous courtesans, based on her memoirs which caused a scandal when published in 1795, and Julie’s own extensive research.

Julie is a well-known historian of eighteenth-century culture and an expert in the history of sexuality.  An Honorary Fellow of Birkbeck College, University of London, her previous books Lascivious Bodies (2004) and The Pleasure’s All Mine (2013), have both been critical and popular successes.