A fresh perspective on the seamy side of history. Maria Nicolaou has done considerable research into the largely unexplored area of divorce and marital separation from the Tudor period to the early Victorian era. Divorced, Beheaded, Sold is full of scandalous, little-known stories of wife sale, marital discord and audacious escapades of errant spouses, this is an interesting, as well as informative read in the same vein as Maureen Waller's The English Marriage and Kate Summerscale's Mrs Robinson's Disgrace. Maria Nicolaou reveals how people ended their marriages in the days before divorce was readily available from committing bigamy to selling a wife at market. Her book is full of colourful characters and warring spouses, like Con Philips, who fought off her husband with a gun filled with firework powder; the Duke of Grafton, who hired an army of detectives to spy on his wife and obtain proof of her adultery; and Marion Jones, who recruited a gang to take back her property from her husband.

Spanning the island of Ireland over three centuries, this first history of Irish divorce places the human experience of marriage breakdown centre stage to explore the impact of a highly restrictive and gendered law, and its reform, on Irish society.

Knowing their Place is a comprehensive account of the public, private and intellectual life of Irish women in the Victorian age. In particular, this book looks at the steady progress of girls and women within the education system, their gradual involvement in intellectual life through amateur societies (such as the Royal Dublin Society); their emergence of independent, highly motivated scholarly and philanthropic individuals who operated within local spheres with often very considerable degrees of success and influence.