Account books have traditionally been approached by historians in two ways: they have been used to extract data on prices and wages for the creation of long-term series, and as a source of curious but largely disconnected facts about lives in past eras. This volume, with its excellent introduction and editorial material provided by Judith Spicksley, demonstrates that accounts can provide so much more for the historian than this. They reveal not just the goods purchased, but social relationships of production, employment and gift-giving. They provide not only information about prices and wages, but also about financial relationships, and, particularly in the case of Joyce Jeffreys' accounts, money lending and rent payments. At the time she wrote these accounts, Joyce Jeffreys was an elderly spinster, a wealthy woman from Herefordshire's county gentry who lived independently. In good times she made a substantial living from her money lending and property management activities; in her best year covered by the accounts, 1639/40, Jeffreys had £4,586 on loan and took £658 in interest (p. 28). Hereford's lay subsidy returns for 1624, helpfully reproduced in an appendix, reveal just how unusual Jeffreys was. Out of the 87 householders listed, she was one of only 6 women and the only female householder who was not a widow. She was also one of the wealthiest householders; only two men paid more than her. As Spicksley points out, single women have often been characterised as marginal members of both families and communities, lacking the status of married householders, and as dependent on others both economically and for their social position. Jeffreys does not fit this mould. She was an independent businesswoman whose income from money lending and her property portfolio greatly outstripped the two annuities she received from family members. She managed her business with little male intervention, save the assistance of male bailiffs and agents she employed herself. However, she was not an eccentric woman making a stand against the male-dominated family and business structures of the time, but rather a woman who was a pillar of her community and apparently held in much affection by a wide circle of family and friends. The accounts record her money-lending transactions in some detail, demonstrating that she lent money to leading businessmen scattered across her locality – these were mercers, clothiers, glovers, vintners and tanners; aldermen, councillors and mayors – from towns such as Leominster, Tewksbury, Worcester, as well as Hereford itself. These men trusted and relied on her in their business dealings, as did her family members, evidenced in part by the fact she was frequently chosen as an executor for wills. Her status amongst men, however, did not disconnect her from networks of female support. She helped arrange marriages, attended births and churchings, and took the responsibility of god-parentage for numerous children. Jeffreys also appears to have been an extraordinarily generous woman, in particular towards women such as younger relatives, god-daughters, servants and neighbours. She buys them clothes, gives them household goods, pays their dowries, apprenticeships or rent, and gives them money, as well as occasionally lending money to them. This is shown most clearly by Jeffreys' will, reproduced in the volume, but evidence of her generosity is scattered throughout the accounts.

The account book reproduced in this volume is very accessible, even to those unfamiliar with seventeenth-century spelling and accounting practices. Spicksley explains her editorial methods with clarity, and provides a glossary, maps and indexes to people, places and subjects, all of which greatly enhance the value of the edition. The introduction discusses all the main themes raised by the diary: Jeffreys' life and family background; her business dealings and money lending; the impact of the civil war on her life and business; her patterns of consumption; Jeffreys' household, religious beliefs and charitable giving; and her hobbies and pastimes. It is this last category which perhaps brings us closest to Joyce Jeffreys the woman when we learn about her personal habits: she kept up with the latest London clothing fashions, smoked tobacco, kept pet dogs, cats and birds, and liked to read history, news and astrology. Spicksley covers so much ground with such confidence, and given she has already also analysed and published on Jeffreys' money-lending business, we might wonder what further information historians will glean from reading the accounts themselves. However, in fact there is still much to be noticed and analysed: in the management of property, the detailed descriptions of textiles and the construction of clothing, the relationship between employers and servants, the household production of foodstuffs and textiles, methods of purchasing goods, patterns of gift-giving and charity, and social networks, especially those amongst women. Although Jeffreys was clearly unique in many ways, the profile of her household and business activities is typical of other wealthy seventeenth-century households represented by surviving account books: the home production activities mixed with purchases of high-status goods, the numerous employees on long- and short-term contracts, the mixture of gift-giving and hard-nosed business dealing, and the illumination of social relationships alongside commercial transactions. This volume presents valuable evidence of provincial everyday life in mid-seventeenth-century England in a way that is accessible, informative and stands as an example for other editors to follow.