From the carefree pleasure-seeking London factory girl to the overworked housewife drudge, the lives of English working-class women in the 19th and early 20th centuries were characterized by two constants: work and want. In this study of women's leisure and recreation from 1750 to 1914, Catriona M. Parratt explores how and to what degree women managed to carve out a sphere of pleasure for themselves within the broader context of the history of English working-class culture.