Laura J. Rosenthal's Nightwalkers: Prostitute Narratives from the Eighteenth Century is a collection of five narratives whose main purpose is to familiarize the reader with the complex nature of cultural attitudes toward prostitution and those who practiced it in eighteenth-century England. In contrast to popular novels of the time period, which often present prostitutes as negative versions of a central heroine, these underutilized narratives present a broad range of possible prostitute experiences, from glamorous courtesans to desperate streetwalkers. Rosenthal includes a useful bibliography of these numerous narratives in her appendix to encourage further exploration. Her own selections reflect a spectrum between two extremes in narrative form. Although the two categories can overlap, libertine narratives present their subjects as either freely choosing prostitution or, once in the profession, embracing it with a view to self-promotion and wealth, while reform or sentimental narratives present prostitutes as victims of circumstance who should be rescued from their bad choices, often made out of economic necessity.

Chapters 1, 2, and 5 of Nightwalkers contain the libertine narratives of Sally Salisbury, Kitty Fisher, and Fanny Davies, respectively. Salisbury, the runaway daughter of a bricklayer, began her career working for a famous bawd, or eighteenth-century madam. Through her good looks and audacity, Salisbury eventually counted earls and dukes among her clientele. The narrative presents her as heartless, allowing suitors to go to prison for debts she incurred and infamously stabbing her lover in a dispute over an opera ticket. Kitty Fisher was also from humble beginnings, her tradesman father spoiling her as though she were a noblewoman. Fisher decided to become a prostitute when she saw the success of other courtesans. Fisher goes on to become as highly sought after as Salisbury, but instead of dying in jail, Fisher marries a wealthy man. Fanny Davies was raised among thieves, her mother a transported criminal and her father deceased. Davies makes her own way in the world as both prostitute and thief, robbing stage coaches dressed as a man and also seducing and robbing noblewomen while so disguised. A tale of warning to virtuous women, Davies's story ends at the gallows. Chapters 3 and 4 contain the reform narratives of Emily Markland and Fanny Sidney, respectively. Unlike the described women above, Markland and Sidney may both be fictional composites of prostitutes who entered the Magdalen Asylum, a reform institution for prostitutes opened in London in 1758. Both orphans and both taken advantage of by young men due to their lack of protection, these two women became prostitutes to support their illegitimate children.

Filled with humorous anecdotes of sexual escapades and intelligent and crafty prostitutes as well as repentant sinners, Nightwalkers provides the type of primary sources that pull students in and help historians put human faces to the issues of gender and sexuality explored in their classes. Following the argument of her 2006 monograph Infamous Commerce (Ithaca, NY), Rosenthal sees a shift in the assessment of prostitution as these narratives progress through the eighteenth century. No longer only about a woman's sexual promiscuity, prostitution had become commodified sexual labor in the emerging capitalist consumer society of Britain. Prostitutes came to embody a gray area between the public and private spheres by commercializing sexuality, and they were increasingly alienated from mainstream society for their transgression. Rosenthal's selections have this theme in common—all the women engage in prostitution not out of uncontrollable lust, as found in Restoration narratives, but out of economic motives. Yet, even economic motives are varied, as demonstrated by Fisher's desire for luxury leading her to become a courtesan while Sidney enters the profession due to poverty.

The work also provokes many questions concerning the historical realities behind these texts, which must remain unanswered by a necessarily brief introduction. The intended and actual audience for these narratives is never mentioned, and the question of authorship could be further explored. The selected narratives are all biographical, with first-hand accounts being too long to include in their entirety. A comparative look at autobiographical versus biographical narratives might tease out further nuances in terms of how gender was constructed in the eighteenth century.

While Rosenthal cautions readers that these are not feminist narratives, and indeed “the elusive prostitute voice” may never be recovered, she emphasizes how these narratives can demonstrate resistance (xi). The libertine narratives of Fisher and Salisbury in particular portray the women as admirable in their belief in and reliance upon their own persons to elevate their financial standing in society. Davies's actions, though ostensibly written as a warning example of the evils of criminality, can nevertheless be read as a critique of the sexual double standard that allowed men more sexual freedom than woman and that demonstrates alternative views to eighteenth-century gender norms.