from me too- a baptism for me,not of fire,but of enthusiasm.

Bless you all for forebearing with my typos- I'm trying(yes, say some- VERY) but...well, you all know the boring story behind it all.

IM Very HO,this book is invaluable for the quite intimate insights it provides into the lives of women who were not partiularly great,wealthy or famous.That such "Middling Sorts" have finally been given some attention,is rather splendid in my book.I would much rather discover details of their lives than ofany number of Duchesses;-).Women rather like Jane Austen's mother, who has been rather on my mind while re-reading this book.

Thank you all for your fabulous contributions- and I will leave remembering Golda's very apt observation that these women are not so far removed from us at all, and that their world ,as described by Amanda Vickery, has very stong resonances with ours here at Pemberley.