Amanda Vickery's, The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England, [1998] provides a challenging and controversial account of the lives of genteel women in provincial England. In this review essay, we consider the implications of her insights and revelations for accounting history research. We argue that her work raises a number of issues concerning what and where accounting took place in the 18th century. In particular, it is suggested that the detailed ‘accounts’ contained within genteel women's pocket books were a means by which they came to ‘know’ their household in order to manage their duties and responsibilities. Accounting historians are encouraged to consider these ‘private’ records as a potentially illuminating source of material on accounting within and without the 18th-century household.
