And so to the most delightful eighteenth century ladies again. A Year with the Ladies of Llangollen is an ingenious production being a generic year with just twelve chapters, one for each month of the year. Each chapter is then almost a potted biography of Lady Eleanor Butler and her friend Miss Sarah Ponsonby and life in their gothic cottage Plas Newydd for that month. March 1774 begins with brewing and ends with March 1826 and requirements for a housemaid. Although Denis de Rouguemont claimed “Happy love has no history”, Elizabeth Mavor’s book proves that some happy love stories do. Their happiness is delightful and infectious; who could resist their garden with fifty varieties of roses? Like the most amusing of books there are delightful maps and a cast list – from Margaret the ladies’ beloved cow, villagers and relations to Lady Dungannon the Duke of Wellington’s spendthrift grandmother. As Elizabeth Mavor says in her introduction, for the ladies “the choice of a new pair of sugar-tongs [was] of more moment than the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy.” If you want more well try The Hamwood Papers of the Ladies of Llangollen and Caroline Hamilton by Mrs G H Bell and after that you will be ready to make the pilgrimage to Llangollen to visit the Ladies’ adorable cottage and to lay flowers on their grave in the local churchyard.