Personal diary of Lady Nugent, wife of the Governor of Jamaica, the most important of the highly prized British sugar colonies, during a critical period in the

This pioneering study surveys nineteenth- and twentieth-century narratives of the West Indies written by white women, English and Creole, with special regard to

Argues that patronage served a very useful function and should not be seen as a form of corruption. This book, based on extensive original research, examines th