I was looking forward to this one, but rather than a series of mini biographies, it's a dry litany of information about the legal position of women in Britain during the eighteenth-century. If the material had been better presented, and the biographical component emphasized, it would have been more interesting. This looked promising and the cover is lovely, but there are far better books available about these fascinating early feminists.

Trailblazing Women of the Georgian Era: The Eighteenth-Century Struggle for Female Success in a Man's World is a non-fiction novel that is a collection of life stories about different women who made a difference despite living in a generation that believed women were only good in the home.

I was pretty excited to read this. I've read similar types of books in the recent past to do with collections of pretty cool women who I had never heard of before and I was looking forward to expanding my knowledge but this book unfortunately fell completely flat for me.

I think, for me, this book was lacking in personality - there was no sense of fun or wonder in the writing which I have enjoyed with previous collections. Everything was told very matter of fact but almost too matter of fact. I don't think the author helped himself by starting out the book with a really boring chapter about the law at the times regarding women, their freedom and the restrictions they were under regarding property, marriage and business. I feel like anyone going into a book about the Georgian era would have a basic knowledge of this already and I don't think such an extensive chapter was needed. It immediately put me off.

I also didn't understand why there was so much mention of the men in these women's lives? I understand that obviously for some women they needed help from their menfolk because of the restrictions in their lives but there were times when the woman's tale would completely tail off and the author would start updating us about the man and I didn't care one bit. If I wanted to be reading about these men, I wouldn't have picked up a book about trailblazing women.

I do think some of my problems with this book also stem from the fact that I generally prefer books written about women BY women. I feel like if a female author had sat down to the same as what Mike Rendell tried to do with this one, it would have been a lot more engaging and a deeper understanding of these women would have come across. And there would have been less emphasize on the men.

The Georgian Era is of particular interest to me, and this text examines women who did not fit the expectations of the their time. Rendell examines Quaker women from all walks of life and how they fought against the stereotypes of their time in an attempt to add their voices to a world that was predominantly male in which a woman was assigned to procreation, issue of the home, and support for her husband. It is of particular interest that with so many trailblazers, women's rights did not emerge in this time period but simmered until the 20th century. Rendell presents a clear picture of the expectations for women and the ways in which the women her choose expressed their individuality.

I don't read a lot of non-fiction but I saw this book available on Netgalley and was immediately interested because I LOVE history. It focuses on the achievements of women at a time where they had next to no rights, for example, if they owned a business, when they married, all assets became the husbands, The Georgian Era wasn't the best time to be a woman.

There are 17 women featured, and all are definitely worth being in the book. They are; Fanny Burney- an author, Anne Damer- a sculptor, Sarah Siddons- an actress, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu- a woman who inspired Edward Jenner to create a vaccination for smallpox, Jane Marcet- she wrote science textbooks for girls, Sarah Guppy, and inventor, Hester Pinney- a lacemaker and stockbroke, Hester Bateman- a silversmith, Eleanor Coade- she created a business for artificial stone, Mary Darly, a print worker, Teresia Phillips- a bigomist and author who also ran brothels, Elizabeth Raffald- she wrote the first cookery book, Hannah More- an educator, Anne Fry- a chocolatier, Elizabeth Fry (yes, related)- a prison reformer, Margaret, Lady Middleton- an abolitionist, and probably the most famous, Mary Wollenstoncraft- she wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women.

You could probably call Mary the first feminist!

It was very interesting to read about their achievements and to discover more about some fascinating ladies! Especially some I hadn't heard of.
The author has clearly done a lot of research when compiling the women for this book. Even though the sections were short, there was a lot of information included. It was good to see that some of the woman were based in Bristol which is local to me, and a city I visit often.

I really enjoyed this book and it was a nice break between fiction. It definitely interested me, and appealed to me, as someone who is really into British history.

I'd definitely recommend it! It just goes to show that women can do anything.

Rating: 3.75 / 5

When I read Queens of Georgian Britain by Catherine Curzon last year, it made me realise how little I knew about the era and how I wanted to know more. This book was my attempt to do that – or at least start too!

Trailblazing Women is a great taster book, one that has introduced me to a whole raft of women I now want to know more about. Broken up into sections for the arts, finance, science, and education which feature a chapter on three or four strong, capable, and fascinating women (in some cases), you don’t get a lot of information on any of them. But you do get enough to whet your appetite to find out more.

Mike Rendell does a good job of pulling out the key facts, interspersed with snippets of gossip about their lives which showed how hard some of them had to fight to have their voices heard. What I also found interesting is how most didn’t do so to progress the rights of women, but were focused on getting their own voices heard.

The book itself has a conversational style, one I’ve noted with other books by Pen & Sword, and so it’s easy to fall into reading it. I read quite a lot of history books and most are so detailed they can feel overwhelming. This doesn’t and, as I said earlier, is a great introduction to a subject. It won’t fill in all the gaps or answer all the questions you might have but it’s a great starting point.

Rendell's work is a fast-paced, interesting exploration of the women who stepped outside of social norms and confinements to blaze a new path during the Georgian Era. Rendell uses a formulaic structure to organize the book: 4 paradigms of the time period to address 4 different categories; The arts and literature, the scientific world, business and commerce, and finally, reformers and educationalist. the structure makes for a comfortable, easy to understand read, and allows for the miniature biographical explorations of each woman to fit neatly. The problems arise when Rendell shifts each section into what I would call the "struggle" portion. Here, Rendell seems to lose focus and become scattered away from what he has stated is his central purpose.

I enjoyed the work, found it enlightening and easy to read. I would recommend it to others who want to know more about the Georgian Era, more about women's history and the ways they have circumvented conventions, and even those hoping to gain a greater understanding of various economic and business practices of the time period. I can even see this work being beneficial in literary and history classes focusing on the time period.

Thank you to Pen & Sword and NetGalley for the eARC of this work in exchange for an honest review.

An interesting look at the public role of women in the Georgian era, this book asks whether women were as unenterprising as has historically been thought. I learned about some women previously unheard of to me, and I thought the author wrote well and the book kept my interest. The author makes a good closing argument where he discusses the sidelining and the glossing over of the work of most women in history.

I thought it was an informative read but it did sometimes read as if the author felt that more women should have defied expectations. There was one point where the author states that women were later disadvantaged after "abstaining from business, largely due to their own volition in the 1700s". Speaking as a woman in today's society, even now with the gains that have been made, it is very difficult to swim against the tide. The childfree movement is one such example, where women who chose to remain childfree are sometimes vilified for their choice. I have some empathy for the women in those times - one can only imagine how much harder it would have been to stand out at a time when the law and social codes were both against you. Overall, an engaging read.

Thank you to the author and publisher for the advance copy in exchange for a honest review! This book was very informative and showcased how women from this era paved the way for the women's movement. The only fault I found with this book was that the author seemed to blame some of the women for their situations, which was odd considering that this book is about the empowering of women. The author seemed to have a biased view of some of the women. Otherwise, the book was enjoyable!

This was a very interesting book. I learned so much -- some things I knew, some things I didn't know and some things I learned more about. I find this part of history interesting and incorporating well known women in history adds to the interest as well as understanding. People of the past truly do pave the way for the future and these trailblazing women of the Georgian Era are an example. Their hardship has led to today's equality, but it is not over yet and we have this book as a look at the past to help up improve the future.

This non-fiction book gives a short overview over some trailblazing women of the Georgian era who paved the way for the women's movement. I really enjoyed learning more about these women's achievements and the world they inhabited, but, unfortunately, the author occasionally seemed confused about the message he was trying to send.

It seemed unfortunate that he seemed to occasionally imply that the women were at fault for their own subjugation. Surely there were women who tried to uphold the status quo for whatever reason, but implying that the women who were held down by law, custom, and their lack of education can be charged for being held back from achieving the same things as men seems somewhat insulting.

Furthermore, the implication that any woman (e.g. Mary Woolstonecraft) has to uphold a certain lifestyle in order to not hinder women's rights seems not only insulting but also sexist. While the author makes the argument that her behaviour held back the women's movement by being a bad example, I would argue that holding her responsible for the oppressive views of a whole generation and gender is ridiculous. Was she used as an excuse? Probably, but is she really at fault? No.

Overall, the women introduced in this book are fascinating and important, but the author's perspective, unfortuantely, occasionally seems somewhat off for the subject he's dealing with.