First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Charles Booth's pioneering survey, Life and Labour of the People in London, published in seventeen volumes between 1889 and 1903, was a landmark in empirical social investigation. His panorama of London life has dominated all subsequent accounts: its scope, precision and detail make it an unrivalled source for the period.
"Mr. Charles Booth's Inquiry" is the first systematic account of the making of the survey, based upon an intensive examination of the huge Booth archive. This contains far more material than was eventually published, in particular on women, work, religion, education, housing and social relations, as well as on poverty. While the book acknowledges the leading role of Booth himself, it highlights the significance of the contributions of his associates, including Beatrice Potter (Webb), Octavia Hill, Llewellyn Smith and G.H. Duckworth.
"Life and Labour of the People in London" is a founding text of both social history and modern sociology. It has however commonly been misunderstood and frequently misused. Mr. Charles Booth's Inquiry sets the survey in perspective and demonstrates the richness of the Booth archive and its potential for modern scholarship in both history and the social sciences.

This new Companion is an invaluable guide to one of the most colourful periods in history. Covering everything from the Reformation, controversies over the succession and the prayer book to literature, the family and education, this highly accessible reference tool contains commentary on the key events in the reigns of the five Tudor monarchs from Henry VII to Elizabeth I.

Opening with a general introduction, it includes a wealth of chronologies, biographies, statistics, and maps, as well as a glossary and a guide to the key works in the field. Topics covered include:

This book will be essential reading for all those with an interest in the Tudor Age.

This new Companion is an invaluable guide to one of the most colourful periods in history. Covering everything from the Reformation, controversies over the succession and the prayer book to literature, the family and education, this highly accessible reference tool contains commentary on the key events in the reigns of the five Tudor monarchs from Henry VII to Elizabeth I.

Opening with a general introduction, it includes a wealth of chronologies, biographies, statistics, and maps, as well as a glossary and a guide to the key works in the field. Topics covered include:

This book will be essential reading for all those with an interest in the Tudor Age.

Women in early modern Britain and colonial America were not the weak husband- and father-dominated characters of popular myth. Quite the reverse, strong women were the norm. They exercised considerable influence as important agents in the social, economic, religious and cultural life of their societies. This book shows how women on both sides of the Atlantic, while accepting a patriarchal system with all its advantages and disadvantages, contrived to carve out for themselves meaningful lives. Unusually it concentrates not only on the making and meaning of marriage, but also upon the partnership between men and women. It also looks at the varied roles - cultural, religious and educational - that women played both inside and outside marriage during the key period 1500-1760. Women emerge as partners, patrons, matchmakers, investors and network builders.

Women in early modern Britain and colonial America were not the weak husband- and father-dominated characters of popular myth. Quite the reverse, strong women were the norm. They exercised considerable influence as important agents in the social, economic, religious and cultural life of their societies. This book shows how women on both sides of the Atlantic, while accepting a patriarchal system with all its advantages and disadvantages, contrived to carve out for themselves meaningful lives. Unusually it concentrates not only on the making and meaning of marriage, but also upon the partnership between men and women. It also looks at the varied roles - cultural, religious and educational - that women played both inside and outside marriage during the key period 1500-1760. Women emerge as partners, patrons, matchmakers, investors and network builders.

'The Debate on the English Reformation' combines a discussion of the successive historical approaches to the English Reformation from 1525 to the present with a critical review of debates in the area.

With an Introduction by Rosemary O'Day. London Labour and the London Poor is a masterpiece of personal inquiry and social observation. It is the classic account of life below the margins in the greatest Metropolis in the world and a compelling portrait of the habits, tastes, amusements, appearance, speech, humour, earnings and opinions of the labouring poor at the time of the Great Exhibition. In scope, depth and detail it remains unrivalled. Mayhew takes us into the abyss, into a world without fixed employment where skills are declining and insecurity mounting, a world of criminality, pauperism and vice, of unorthodox personal relations and fluid families, a world from which regularity is absent and prosperity has departed. Making sense of this environment required curiosity, imagination and a novelist's eye for detail, and Henry Mayhew possessed all three. No previous writer had succeeded in presenting the poor through their own stories and in their own words, and in this undertaking Mayhew rivals his contemporary Dickens. 'To pass from one to the other', writes one authority,' is to cross sides of the same street'.

The Professions in Early Modern England, 1450-1800" looks at the growth of a professional working class from the Tudor period to the early nineteenth century, a working class vital in the development of a recognizably modern world. "Examines the differences between the 'lettered' and the leisured classes and explores the lives of lawyers, politicians, physicians, teachers and clerics. Those interested in British or social history. Hardcover - 0-582-29265-4 $ 84.95 y

Provides a full, detailed picture of the life of an aristocratic family in early modern England. The Temples of Stowe were a leading Midland landed family, owning land in, and with strong connections to, Buckinghamshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. In the seventeenth century they were one of the wealthiest and most prominent local families, building in the eighteenth century a large and beautiful country house, now Stowe School. The family also left voluminous records, housed mainly in the Huntington and the Folger Shakespeare libraries. Based on very extensive research in these records, this book provides a detailed picture of the family life of the early Temples. It examines household, financial and estate management, discusses social networking and the promotion of family interests, and considers the legal disputes the family were engaged in. It focuses in particular on the happy and effective marriage of Sir Thomas and Lady Hester Temple, exploring their relationship with each other, with their children, and with their siblings. Lady Hester, who outlived her husband by twenty years, is a good example of a formidable matriarch, who took a strong lead in managing the family and its resources. Overall, the book provides a full and detailed picture of the family life of an aristocratic family in early modern England. ROSEMARY O'DAY is Professor of History at the Open University and author of, amongst numerous other works, Women's Agency in Early Modern Britain and the American Colonies: Patriarchy, Partnership and Patronage (Pearson. Longman 2007) and Cassandra Brydges (1670-1735) First Duchess of Chandos: Life and Letters (Boydell Press 2007).

Extensively revised and updated, this new edition of The debate on the English Reformation combines a discussion of successive historical approaches to the English Reformation with a critical review of recent debates in the area, offering a major contribution to modern historiography as well as to Reformation studies. It explores the way in which successive generations have found the Reformation relevant to their own times and have in the process rediscovered, redefined and rewritten its story. It shows that not only people who called themselves historians but also politicians, ecclesiastics, journalists and campaigners argued about interpretations of the Reformation and the motivations of its principal agents. The author also shows how, in the twentieth century, the debate was influenced by the development of history as a subject and, in the twenty-first century, by state control of the academy. Undergraduates, researchers and lecturers alike will find this an invaluable and essential companion to their studies. -- .