Overview

This fascinating new book radically rewrites all that we know about eighteenth-century childbirth by placing women’s voices at the centre of the story. From quickening through to confinement, giving caudle, delivery and lying-in, birth was once a complex ritual that involved entire communities. Drawing on an extensive and under-researched body of materials, such as letters, diaries and recipe books, this book offers critical new perspectives on the history of the family and community. It explores the rituals of childbirth, from birthing clothing to the foods traditionally eaten before and after birth, and also how a woman’s relationship with her family, husband, friends and neighbours changed during pregnancy and beyond. In this important and deeply moving study, we are invited on a detailed and emotive journey through motherhood in an age of immense intellectual and sociocultural change.

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9781914477058

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"""Backed by impeccable research, including analysis of troves of archived letters, Fox focuses on birthing in 18th-century England as a process shaped by women's experiences within a complex context of social and cultural practices... Highly recommended.""-- ""Choice"""

Backed by impeccable research, including analysis of troves of archived letters, Fox focuses on birthing in 18th-century England as a process shaped by women's experiences within a complex context of social and cultural practices... Highly recommended. -- Choice

Author Information

Sarah Fox is a social and cultural historian with interests in the social histories of law and medicine, the body, emotion, gender, food, and community. She completed her PhD at the University of Manchester in 2017 and is currently working at the University of Birmingham as a research associate on the Leverhulme-funded project Material Bodies, Social Identities: Embodiment in British Letters c.1680-1820.

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