This remarkable anthology gives the reader a unique insight into the ideas and actions of women in Scotland over two centuries. The selection ranges across the entire social spectrum, from the aristocratic advice of Lady Grisell Baillie's Household Book to the reminiscences and moral reflections of Janet Hamilton, a shoemaker's daughter from Shotts. Geographically the approach is scarcely less broad, stretching from accounts of the Hebrides and Shetlands to voyages across the Pacific ocean. Each selection begins with a biographical note and includes guidance for further reading. The extracts are annotated throughout, making The Scotswoman at Home and Abroad a resource for students as well providing historical and aesthetic pleasure for the general reader. Practical or whimsical, written for pleasure or for publication and profit, the extracts in The Scotswoman at Home and Abroad provide a vivid cross-section of half of Scotland's culture from 1700 to 1900, using texts that have fallen out of print and including some previously unpublished material.
Issues of class, gender and society are boldly illustrated, and the private and public life of the times can be read out of these works in ways that would not perhaps be possible from male writing of the period.