The Diaries of Hannah Cullwick, Victorian Maidservant

Download or read book The Diaries of Hannah Cullwick, Victorian Maidservant written by Hannah Cullwick and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 thiry-six, lived largely apart. Hannah's diaries, written on Munby's suggestion, offer an obsorbing 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.