Victorian Governess Paperback / softback
by Kathryn Hughes
Paperback / softback
Description
The figure of the governess is very familiar from 19th-century literature.
Much less is known about the governess in reality. This work explores what the life of the home schoolroom was actually like.
Drawing on original diaries and a variety of sources, the author describes why the period 1840-80 was the classic age of the governess.
She examines their numbers, recruitment, teaching methods, social position and prospects.
The governess provides a key to the central Victorian concept of the lady.
Her education consisted of a series of accomplishments designed to attract a husband able to keep her in the style to which she had become accustomed from birth.
Becoming a governess was the only acceptable way of earning money open to a lady whose family could not support her in leisure.
Being paid to educate another woman's children set in play a series of social and emotional tensions.
The governess was a surrogate mother, who was herself childless, a young woman whose marriage prospects were restricted, and a family member who was sometimes mistaken for a servant.
Information
-
Out of stock
- Format:Paperback / softback
- Pages:278 pages
- Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Publication Date:01/09/2001
- Category:
- ISBN:9781852853259
Other Formats
- PDF from £18.74
Information
-
Out of stock
- Format:Paperback / softback
- Pages:278 pages
- Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Publication Date:01/09/2001
- Category:
- ISBN:9781852853259
