"Strong-minded Women and other lost voices from Nineteenth Century England" is a must-read for all serious enthusiasts of modern/Victorian/woman's history. It is a compilation of nineteenth century women's words and writings on a wide variety of topics, some of which are virtually ignored by other books on the period. What I find particularly usefula nd fascinating about the book is the wide social spectrum it covers, ranging from Queen Victoria's letters to her eldest daughter to the testimony of a nine-year-old girl working underground in the mines. As a teaching assistant for a general survey course of modern history, I find the book very useful to teach my students about the darker side of "the good old days". I highly recommend this book.

This book was written by Mary Taylor, a very close confidante of Charlotte Bronte. Taylor spent decades writing the book, not publishing it until she was in her 70s! The four main characters--Sarah, Amelia, Dora, and Maria--are from different socio-economic levels and must deal with the question of how a woman can support herself in hard economic times. In the early 1800s there were not many options for women; mainly they were encouraged to just be dependent on a man, husband or father. Taylor also explores the idea that even if a woman does not need to work for economic reasons, she should seek an education and gainful employment to make her life full (a radical idea for those times).

Sarah and Maria struggle admirably to make their mundane lives meaningful. Neither do they give up their ambitions for personal fulfillment when they fall in love with local men. Dora is the most rebellious of all, but learns to tame her temper to get what she wants. Amelia, sadly, does not succeed at breaking her chains--how ironic that the one born into the family with the most wealth and position should suffer the most.

I enjoyed the story; however, much of the dialogue is in Yorkshire dialect which was very difficult to follow and really slowed me down. For this reason I will not read the book again. I understand that the author wanted to make her characters authentic, however I wish she had written the dialogue in straight-ahead plain English.