This is a comparative study of the effects of local, regional and national changes of nine parishes in the Upper Eden Valley in north Westmorland during the Victorian years. The analysis of 65,000 records from these sources has given a rare, if not unique, insight into a series of rural parishes.

List of members included in each volume except v. 1.

The travel journals and letters of Matthew and George Culley give a fresh and practical picture of agriculture and related conditions in England and Scotland in the late eighteenth century, as seen by two successful farmers who pioneered and spread improved methods and livestock breeds in Northumberland and beyond. These down-to-earth journals are worthy to stand alongside such famous contemporary works as Arthur Young's Tours and John Byng's Diaries.

A clothier and a deeply religious man, Joseph Ryder faithfully kept a diary from 1733 until his death, two and a half million words later, in 1768. Recently rediscovered and brilliantly interpreted by historian Matthew Kadane, Ryder's diary provides an illuminating, real-life perspective on the relationship between capitalism and Protestantism at a time when Britain was rapidly changing from a traditional to a modern society. It also provides fascinating insights on the early modern family, the birth of industrialization, the history of Puritanism, the origins of Unitarianism, melancholy, and the making of the British middle class.

The idea of improvement - gradual and cumulative betterment - was something new in 17th century England. It became commonplace to assert that improvements in agriculture, industry, commerce, and social welfare would bring infinite prosperity and happiness. The word improvement was itself new, and since it had no equivalent in other languages, it gave the English a distinctive culture of improvement which they took with them to Ireland, Scotland, and America. Slack explains the political, intellectual, and economic circumstances which allowed notions of improvement to take root.

The Enlightenment was a time of monetary turmoil and transformation in Europe. Change began with a riot of experimentation, including novel ideas about human agency and capacity to promote economic progress, efforts to reframe divinity in terms (like the providential) compatible with market exchange, new instruments of credit, and innovative institutions such as national banks and capital markets. Europeans, including the settler societies in North America, improvised frantically: people faced the task of everyday exchange in changing media; governments took up the project of creating currencies that supported their political power; artists and writers raced to represent new forms of wealth and interpret the issues they raised; and intellectuals struggled to conceptualize, and tame, patterns of monetary transformation. The result was a rich debate, still unsettled, about the sources of value, the morality of the market, and the very nature of money. Drawing upon a wealth of visual and textual sources, A Cultural History of Money in the Age of Enlightenment presents essays that examine key cultural case studies of the period on the themes of technologies, ideas, ritual and religion, the everyday, art and representation, interpretation, and the issues of the age.

This comprehensive and authoritative edition of the correspondence of Daniel Defoe situates each letter in its biographical, literary, and historical contexts. A unique source for a turbulent period of British history, Defoe's correspondence spans topics including the first age of party marked by Tory and Whig rivalry, religious tensions between the Church and Dissenters, the uncertainty of the monarchical succession, the birth of Great Britain and its establishment as a global empire, and the use of the press to mould public opinion. As well as an introduction discussing Defoe's epistolary habits and the distinctive features of his letters, headnotes and annotations explain each document's occasion, beginning in 1703 with Defoe hunted by the government for sedition, and ending in 1730 with him again in hiding, fleeing creditors months before his death. The volume is illustrated with examples of Defoe's letters, offering a fresh window onto Defoe's manuscript habits.

Three decades of research into retailing in England from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries has established a seemingly clear narrative: fixed shops were widespread from an early date; 'modern' methods of retailing were common from at least the early eighteenth century; shopping was a skilled activity throughout the period; and consumers were increasingly part of - and aware of being part of - a polite and fashionable culture. All of this is true, but is it the only narrative? Research has shown that markets were still important well into the nineteenth century and small scale producer-retailers co-existed with modern warehouses. Many shops were not smart. The development of modern retailing therefore was a fractured and fragmented process. This book presents a reassessment of the standard view by challenging the usefulness of concepts like 'traditional' and 'modern', examining consumption and retailing as inextricably linked aspects of a single process, and by using the idea of narrative to discuss the roles and perceptions of the various actors in this process - such as retailers, shoppers/consumers, local authorities and commentators. The book is therefore structured around some of these competing narratives in order to provide a richer and more varied picture of consumption and retailing in provincial England.

The Complete Tradesman redresses the relative paucity of studies on the history of retailing before 1800. Based upon extensive research into diverse trade sources, Cox takes issue with the surprisingly resilient stereotype of the 'dull' and 'out of date' shopkeeper in the early modern period, showing that the retailing sector was well adapted to the social and economic needs of the day and quick to exploit new opportunities. Chapters cover not only distribution, shop design, customer relations and networks between tradesmen, but also attitudes to retailing, official controls, and the response to novelty. By throwing light on subjects hitherto overlooked and challenging existing whiggish preoccupations with progress towards modern retailing systems, this study signals a new approach to the history of retailing. The focus is placed on assessing how far tradesmen, especially shopkeepers, satisfied and stimulated contemporary desires for consumer goods.