Life for women of the 18th century was difficult, contradictory, and thrilling. Who can tell you about the times and about themselves better than eyewitnesses—people who lived in that era? That is why the book is filled with quotes from memoirs and literary works of the 18th century. Memoir writers sometimes contradict one another, view the same people and events in different ways, and are not always accurate in their account of facts. But precisely this is what makes their texts vivid testimony to the age—with all its secrets, contradictions, omissions, and sometimes even falsifications and outright lies. Of course, this topic can’t be exhausted by a single book. And the day when the number of works devoted to women’s history will match the number describing men’s history is still far off. Yet, having read this book to the end, you will know a little more about what it meant to be a woman in 18th-century St. Petersburg.