Lactilla Tends Her Fav'rite Cow: Ecocritical Readings of Animals and Women in Eighteenth-Century British Labouring-Class Women’s Poetry

This volume brings together issues of gender, class, and species through a study of a selection of poetry by five eighteenth-century British laboring-class women poets: Mary Collier, Mary Leapor, Elizabeth Hands, Ann Yearsley, and Janet Little. Extending the feminist concept of ‘interlocking oppressions’ to include a consideration of the link between women and animals, Lactilla Tends her Fav'rite Cow benefits from the foundations set by earlier studies of laboring-class writers even as it extends their conclusions through the use of an explicitly ecocritical perspective. As well, the book’s specific focus on the period between 1740 and 1800 contributes to furthering the nascent ecocritical practice in eighteenth-century studies.