Against the traditional and oft-repeated view that early modern English spinsters were generally isolated, derogated and subject to accusations of witchcraft and petty crime, lies the remarkably well-documented adult life of the Hereford spinster Joyce Jeffreys (1570–1650). The only child of a middling gentry family of the West Midlands, Jeffreys inherited wealth from both her parents, her half-brother Humphrey Coningsby and her cousin Sir Thomas Coningsby, before settling comfortably into the city of Hereford around 1625. Far from reclusive or ostracized, she continually and fully engaged in the social, material and cultural life of that city. In addition, her active and lucrative role as a property owner and money-lender brought her into contact with scores of clients throughout a three- or four-county hinterland and even, in a few cases, as far as London. Those contacts with relatives and clients only expanded during the Civil Wars, when Jeffreys fled her Hereford house on Widemarsh Street in 1642 to reside in greater safety with friends and relatives in Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Returning to the city when it seemed safe to do so, she built a substantial new house on the same street thereafter, only to sell it at a considerable loss in 1645 for fear of its destruction in further hostilities.

We learn of these and myriad other events of her later life in fine detail, as she recorded her almost daily pursuits in a financial account book or ‘diary’. The British Library's Egerton MS 3054 includes 23 long and narrow folios recording her receipts as a money-lender, and 48 recording her personal expenditures. These survive in their entirety from 1638 until mid-way through 1648. Though they have served to inspire several earlier publications (including two essays by this reviewer), their full text and even fuller commentary have not been accessible in printed form until now. The British Academy and Oxford University Press have now remedied this lack by the elegant production of Judith M. Spicksley's edition of The Business and Household Accounts of Joyce Jeffreys, Spinster of Hereford, 1638–1648. The accounts around which the book revolves speak for themselves: Spicksley has edited them thoughtfully and well, even overcoming the problem of a tight binding which hides the last few letters of many lines. But her extensive commentary on editorial methods and commentary, extending even to a scholarly consideration of the inks employed by the writer, and her 80-page introduction to the accounts and their meaning, add enormous value to the text itself.

This is not, strictly speaking, a work of urban history per se: Jeffreys was actually driven from her Hereford home for much of the period covered by the ‘Diary’. But Jeffreys’ activities shed ample light on that city's role as a regional centre for the financial provision, agricultural production and marketing, and material culture of both city and hinterland, and of the impact of civil war on such a provincial centre. Thus, we find thoughtful and extremely well-contextualized short discussions on such issues as money-lending, patterns of consumption, family and household concerns, charity, medical knowledge and practice and hobbies and pastimes. The book concludes with valuable appendices including the text of relevant Hereford city documents, a list of Jeffreys’ clients, a transcript of her will and a time-line for her designated servants and employees. One may wish for more direct engagement with earlier Jeffreys scholarship, or quibble with a few subtle nuances of interpretation, or with the editor's reading of the text itself. (My own list of Jeffreys’ clients, for example, includes some who have been overlooked here, but it also overlooks a few more which Spicksley's includes). But these are small concerns. Students and their mentors alike will benefit from the broad scope and considerable importance of both text and commentary.