Description:
This book examines the impact sisters and brothers had on eighteenth-century English families and society. Using evidence from letters, diaries, probate disputes, court transcripts, prescriptive literature and portraiture, it argues that although parents' wills often recommended their children 'share and share alike', siblings had to constantly negotiate between prescribed equality and practiced inequalities.
Siblinghood and social relations in Georgian England, which will be the first monograph-length analysis of early modern siblings in England, is primed to be at the forefront of sibling studies. The book is intended for a broad audience of scholars - particularly those interested in families, women, children and eighteenth-century social and cultural history.Review Quotes:
'...this text usefully and compactly investigates an important and neglected matter.'
Martha F. Bowden, Kennesaw State University, The Scriblerian and the Kit-cats, May 2016