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The Diaries of Hannah Cullwick, Victorian Maidservant

Hannah Cullwick (1833-1909) worked all her life as a maidservant, scullion, and pot-girl. In 1854 she met Arthur Munby, 'man of two worlds,' upper-class author and poet, with a lifelong obsession for lower-class women. And so began their strange and secret romance of eighteen years and marriage of thirty-six, lived largely apart. Hannah's diaries, written on Munby's suggestion, offer an absorbing account of life 'below stairs' in Victorian England.

But they reveal, too, a woman of extraordinary independence of will, whose chosen life of drudgery gave her the freedom not to 'play the Lady,' as Munby demanded. Rescued from obscurity, these diaries are a remarkable historical and personal document.

  • Format
  • hardcover
  • Pages
  • 327
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9780813510705
  • Genres
  • history, victorian
  • Release date
  • 1984