Poetical Maids and Cooks Who Wrote

Focusing on the poetry of Elizabeth Hands (fl.1789), this article discusses the relationship of poetry to labor (in particular the work of cookmaids) in eighteenth-century England. Domestic service is discussed in relationship to literacy, and to the reading and writing experiences of eighteenth-century plebeian children. It considers recent theoretical developments in economic history and in socio-linguistics, in order to consider their usefulness for uncovering experience of life, labor and literature in the past.