It's become a sub-genre: the mini-saga set in vaguely Napoleonic times about a spirited female living in England, having adventures, making her own way as best she can. From the title and the cover, this book seems a little dubious -- lots of breasts and steamy sex and way too much romping. But "The Wet Nurse's Tale" turns out to be informative, unusual and intelligent.

So much of the literature written in these times was by men -- men of means, who seemed to have spent their days wandering the countryside, looking for milkmaids to tease or harass or ravage. (Or maybe they were only bragging.) I remember a class in graduate school taught by a pale, dreamy man who one day woke the students from their collective torpor by reading aloud from a nobleman's memoirs, something like "I turned her on her head and slapped a pound of butter in her breach!" The professor, who wouldn't have said boo to a goose in real life, looked wistful. They used to have fun in those days! They rollicked! (No one ever wrote down what the milkmaids thought.)

But "The Wet Nurse's Tale" takes the point of view of just such a girl. She grows up in a poverty-stricken village in which every citizen depends on work over at the Great House, where a family of the gentry lives in oblivious entitlement. Mr. Bonney, a crass boor, enjoys hunting and the occasional rape; Mrs. Bonney, idle and vain, is more than happy to have her husband slake his lust elsewhere. Their children are two chipper daughters and Freddie, a glum young man who hates horses, is an unashamed mama's boy and looks forward to no particular future.