Non-Fiction books about women’s lives sort of like Call the Midwife but not that

[UrEatingHamPam]

Not sure that’s quite the right thread title but not sure how to describe it!

Can anyone recommend any books sort of like Lark Rise to Candleford or Call the Midwife, not necessarily memoirs but first hand accounts of women’s daily lives, at any point in history really?

I’ve read a few that I’ve seen recommended on Mumsnet on a few other threads and they always hit the spot! Recently these include…..
Life As We Have Known it by Margaret Llewelyn Davies
The Life of Martha Ballard - a midwife in the early 1800’s
The Diary of a Farmers Wife 1796-1797
Below Stairs by Margaret Powell

I work in a big old country house and really like listening to audiobooks about servants lives and imagining what would have been going on where I’m working in days gone by! But there’s quite a lot of these sorts of books around so if anyone can recommend any decent ones (whatever that means, it’s subjective isn’t it!) then I’m all ears!

currently reading The Midwife’s Tale by Nicky Leap which is essentially a collection of interviews from women remembering the handywomen who preceded professional midwife’s and I’m finding it so interesting I’d love more of the same!!!

can anyone help with this niche request or suggest anything else similarly interesting?

SnugglyJumpersMakeItBetter, do you mean Miss Read? I love these - the Fairacre books particularly - 'typhoon tea, for storms in teacups....'

Lillian Beckwith - the Hebridean books are good but she wrote one called 'About my Father's Business' about the family grocery store set in the Black Country in the twenties and thirties.

'Figures in a Bygone Landscape' by Don Haworth

Diary of a Provincial Lady.

My suggestions have been mentioned but this thread has reminded me to go back and reread some old favourites, thank you.

Different kind of historical women but I cannot stop raving about clan of the cave bear by Jean M Auel. It gives an amazing perspective of women’s life before civilisation

Yes this. Loved it!

The Stepney Doorstep Society by Kate Thompson. It is about the women of the East End from the 1930s, through the war (main focus of the book) and later, all based around the lives of women who lived it and her interviews with them. Remarkable stories.

Diary of an Ordinary Woman - Margaret Forster.

Hidden Lives (non-fiction) and Lady's Maid both by Margaret Forster. The latter is a very convincing fictionalised account of the adult life of the poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning told from the perspective of the maid.
I'd also second the Nella Last diaries.

I forgot that one! I love Margaret Forster's writing.

The Maids Tale by Rose Plummer is great!

@Debrathom me too. I’d forgotten about Hidden Lives which I really loved.

Hannah Hauxwell: Daughter of the Dales. Very moving.

Home Fires Burning: The Great War Diaries of Georgina Lee. Georgina was a middle class woman living in London who started to keep a diary at the outbreak of war in 1914 for her son, who was a baby at the time, so he would know what had happened. She writes about her war work, about life in wartime and things she witnessed such as Zeppelin raids and about the experiences of family and friends.

Another vote for Nella Last's diaries. They're fascinating and you find yourself absolutely rooting for her.

Diary of a Provincial Lady? I think her daughter also wrote a book years later.