Family, Love, and Work in the Lives of Victorian Gentlewomen

Physically frail, badly educated girls, brought up to lead useless lives as idle gentlewomen, married to dominant husbands, and relegated to "separate spheres" of life--these phrases have often been used to describe Victorian upper-middle-class women. M. Jeanne Peterson rejects such formulations and the received wisdom they embody in favor of a careful examination of Victorian ladies and their lives.