Woman's Labour

The Thresher's Labour by Stephen Duck was a sensation in 1730, highlighting the plight of the working class. Mary Collier penned a stinging riposte, The Woman's Labour, which reframed Duck's relation of harvest-time toil from a woman's perspective. This edition includes The Thresher's Labour, The Three Wise Sentences, An Epistolary Answer to an Exciseman, and an elegy for Stephen Duck.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 64 pages
Publication date: 24 February 2021
Publisher: Renard Press Ltd

In the eighteenth century, poetry was largely the domain of educated and affluent men, with bookcases groaning under the weight of volumes by renowned poets such as Swift, Johnson, and Pope. However, when Stephen Duck's The Thresher's Labour was published in 1730, it caused a sensation. This remarkable work highlighted the plight of the working class in verse, a concept that had previously been unthinkable. Duck's poem caught the attention of Mary Collier, a washerwoman working in Hampshire. Collier was astounded by Duck's dismissive portrayal of women as lazy layabouts who indulged in noisy prattle. In response, she penned a scathing riposte, titled The Woman's Labour. Through this edition, we aim to provide a broader perspective on the conversation, encompassing Duck's The Thresher's Labour, The Three Wise Sentences (which Collier included in the initial publication of her reply), An Epistolary Answer to an Exciseman Who Doubted Her Being the Author, and the elegiac poem she composed for Stephen Duck after his passing.

Weight: 104g
Dimension: 131 x 201 x 8 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781913724344