I watch period dramas and get lost in the costumes, the politeness, the large houses, the ordered society - upper class, middle class or working class!
The upper classes seemed to have had a life of ease. Reading, shooting, sewing, horse riding, hunting etc.
The middle classes, similar, but to be working class would have been dreadful. Not much money for anything nice.
I do think though, that illness would have been frightening, which ever spectrum of society you were from, as there were no antibiotics, no anaesthetic if operated on! Lack of knowledge of biology, or what was toxic. Fancy putting mercury and/or lead on your skin.
Re period dramas: I've only read Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë) and Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen). My preferred subjects, for reading, would be auto/biographies and other history books, but as I write this I have the film Emma on - perhaps I should read it...
