Elite Women and the Agricultural Landscape, 1700–1830

"Briony McDonagh’s recent monograph, awarded the Joan Thirsk Memorial Prize, tracks the trials and tribulations of seventy elite female farmers in Georgian England. By illuminating wealthy women’s activities in owning, managing and improving landed property, McDonagh’s study provides an important corrective to a historiographical tradition in which male agrarian improvers have been depicted as authors of the rural landscape and female contributions largely effaced. Meticulously researched and closely written, this slim volume opens up new vistas by challenging analyses positing an increasingly gendered division between private and public spheres during the eighteenth century."

- Elly Robson, Jesus College, University of Cambridge

It is a book that leaves you wanting more; many of the different elements of the book would be worthy of a full- length study in themselves, especially the brief section on women landownership in literature. This, though, is its strength. It covers new ground and provides new questions to be considered, as the author notes herself in the conclusion. As one would hope from a historical geographer, McDonagh has provided an excellent, clear map. I believe it will guide future scholarship in this area for a number of years.

- Ruth Larsen, University of Derby