This is the first study of women's leading contribution to animal protection in nineteenth-century Britai

Diana Donald, now an independent scholar, is the author of Picturing Animals in Britain 1750-1850, and the prize-winning Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts

Preface
Prefatory note: The archive of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Introduction
1 Sexual distinctions in attitudes to animals in the late Georgian era
2 The early history of the RSPCA: its culture and its conflicts
3 Animal welfare and 'humane education': new roles for women
4 The 'two religions': a gendered divide in Victorian society
5 Anti-vivisection: a feminist cause?
6 Sentiment and 'the spirit of life': new insights at the fin de siècle
Index