Essex Land Girls

Dee Gordon • £9.99
The History Press

As much as 70 per cent of Essex is agricultural, and given its proximity to the capital it is not surprising that so many members of the Women’s Land Army found themselves on Essex farms and in Essex fields during the two world wars, doing their bit to make sure that Britain did not starve.

This book not only includes interviews with some of the last surviving land ‘girls’ but also contains a wealth of material unearthed in diaries, letters and in the stories handed down from one generation to the next about women in Essex who were, literally, wearing the trousers.

They were not all local girls, and many arrived from the cities never having seen a cow or a tractor before. But the British spirit persevered, and the wit and camaraderie that served us so well during those tumultuous years shines through in every story.

Tracing Your Ancestors’ Parish Records

Stuart Raymond • £12.99
Pen & Sword

Parish records are essential sources for family and local historians, making this first thoroughgoing survey of these resources to be published for over three decades an invaluable guide.

In a concise, easy-to-follow text, the author describes where these important records can be found and demonstrates how they can be used. Records relating to the poor laws, apprentices, the church, tithes, enclosures and charities are all covered, with an ongoing emphasis on understanding their original purpose and revealing how relevant they are for researchers today.

An excellent introduction to this key area of family and local history research, Tracing Your Ancestors’ Parish Records is a book that all family and local historians will find useful to have on their reference shelf.

Great Victorian Discoveries

Caroline Rochford • £8.99
Amberley Books

Have you ever heard of a four-footed bird? Can you really teach a dog to read? Where would you find a kangaroo crossed with a lion? Find out the answers in Great Victorian Discoveries ,

published by Amberley on 15 April. In this entertaining follow-up to Great Victorian Inventions, Caroline Rochford reveals the wondrous experiments and extraordinary theories of the great minds of science, engineering and natural history of the Victorian age. Some discoveries were authentic, some merely misguided assumptions giving rise to strange beliefs.

A Visitor’s Guide to Jane Austen’s England

Sue Wilkes • £12.99
Pen & Sword

Immerse yourself in the vanished world inhabited by Austen’s contemporaries. Packed with detail, and anecdotes, this is an intimate exploration of how the middle and upper classes lived from 1775, the year of Austen’s birth, to the coronation of George IV in 1820. DYA contributor Sue Wilkes skilfully conjures up all aspects of daily life within the period, drawing on contemporary diaries, illustrations, letters, novels, travel literature and archives.

Were all unmarried affluent men really ‘in want of a wife’? Where would a young lady seek adventures? Would ‘taking the waters’ at Bath and other spas kill or cure you? Was Lizzy Bennet bitten by bed-bugs while travelling? What would you wear to a country ball, or a dance at Almack’s? Would Mr Darcy have worn a corset? What hidden horrors lurked in elegant Regency houses? Put on your dancing gloves and embrace a lost era of corsets and courtship!