Demonstrating the role of women in the appearance and running of family estates, this volume brings together 15 essays on the lives and functions of women in country houses in Ireland and Britain from the 17th to the 20th centuries, including house owners, residents, and caretakers who organized households, supervised architects and builders, raised families, mobilized political support, acquired culinary expertise, assisted husbands or sons, wrote fiction, traveled overseas, and were activists and landowners. Historians and other scholars from the UK describe the work of Jemima Yorke, Catherine Maria Dawson, Madeline Wyndham, Mabel Morrison, Georgina and Harriet Cavendish, the Winn sisters, Lady Harriet Le Poer Trench, Lady Gregory, Jane Walters, Mildrid Darby, Rosalind Howard, Dorothy Parsons, Louisa Connolly, Sarah Bunbury, Louisa Browne, and others. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation ©2018 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)