{"id":17,"date":"2018-11-29T15:27:45","date_gmt":"2018-11-29T15:27:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/?page_id=17"},"modified":"2026-03-24T13:51:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T13:51:42","slug":"burnham-press","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/archive\/burnham-press\/","title":{"rendered":"Burnham Press"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>We brought out exciting new works in 2013 and 2020: the full text of an eighteenth-century English diarist and the companion volumes describing the world she knew.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5096\" style=\"width: 804px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5096\" class=\"wp-image-5096 size-full\" title=\"Mary Hardy and her World, published April 2020\" src=\"https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/04\/World-vols-crp-2.jpg\" alt=\"volumes of Mary Hardy and her World\" width=\"794\" height=\"459\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/04\/World-vols-crp-2.jpg 794w, https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/04\/World-vols-crp-2-300x173.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/04\/World-vols-crp-2-768x444.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 794px) 100vw, 794px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-5096\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The four volumes of <em>Mary Hardy and her World 1773\u20131809<\/em> (published 2020) contain more than 3300 pages. They could be bought individually or\u2014at a reduced price\u2014as a set. Two volumes were shortlisted for a book award in October 2020. All were Highly Commended for the Thirsk Rural History Prize 2021.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We invite you to explore this site to learn more about the diarist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/archive\/mary-hardys-world\/mary-hardy-project\/mary-hardy-1733-1809-the-diarist\/\">Mary Hardy<\/a> (1733\u20131809). She is pictured at the banner in 1785, by the French artist James Gabriel Huquier.<\/p>\n<p>Are you researching your family history? Or gathering material on a range of specialist subjects in this period?\u00a0You will want to read the diary of Mary Hardy and enjoy its 1300 illustrations.<\/p>\n<p>The volumes of commentary, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/archive\/mary-hardys-world\/\">Mary Hardy and her World<\/a>, have 1450 black-and-white illustrations and 190 colour plates.<\/p>\n<p>Both sets of books have detailed notes on each page, informative picture captions and hundreds of pages of index.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>If you just like reading about the past in some detail, these books will appeal to you. You can read more under <a href=\"https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/archive\/burnham-press\/our-readers\/\">Our Readers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>Buying the books<\/h3>\n<p>We were the publishers; Burnham Press closed on 21 March 2026 as the partners were retiring from business. Information about the eleven Mary Hardy titles remains on this archived website.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1357\" style=\"width: 910px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1357\" class=\"wp-image-1357 size-full\" title=\"The Diary of Mary Hardy 1773-1809 (2013) and The Remaining Diary (2013)\" src=\"https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2012\/05\/Diary-of-Mary-Hardy-volumes.jpg\" alt=\"The Diary volumes\" width=\"900\" height=\"638\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2012\/05\/Diary-of-Mary-Hardy-volumes.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2012\/05\/Diary-of-Mary-Hardy-volumes-300x213.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2012\/05\/Diary-of-Mary-Hardy-volumes-768x544.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1357\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Diary volumes (2013). The four hardbacks could be bought individually or\u2014at a reduced price\u2014as a set. The Remaining Diary of Mary Hardy, a large paperback, contains the diary entries omitted from the hardbacks. The paperback has no editorial notes or index and few illustrations<\/p><\/div>\n<h3>What is so special about Mary Hardy?<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0She wrote half a million words in 36 years, yet had little formal education.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Hers was a dynamic world.\u00a0Her family&#8217;s life as\u00a0farmers and rural manufacturers\u00a0was neither static nor isolated.\u00a0Until now it was a world we had only glimpsed.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Mary Hardy\u00a0ranges widely. Some of her coverage is unique.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0She is a vital source of data, of firm evidence.\u00a0We read not what people thought; and rarely what they said. Instead we learn what they\u00a0<em>did<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can read more about the\u00a0published <a href=\"https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/mary-hardys-diary\/\">Diary<\/a>\u00a0and the editor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/archive\/mary-hardys-diary\/margaret-bird-the-editor\/\">Margaret Bird<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>Reviews<\/h3>\n<p>The published Diary, in terms of\u00a0its content, the rarity\u00a0of the source and the high standards of editing and production, earns praise from\u00a0all\u00a0its\u00a0reviewers.<\/p>\n<p>Professor Richard G. Wilson pays tribute to Mary Hardy\u00a0as illuminating the uncertainties of her time, in a world of constant upheaval. Rural life was far from stable and unchanging, and her long record mirrors this world.<\/p>\n<p>His analysis, and the four\u00a0other book reviews published, can be found under <a href=\"https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/archive\/mary-hardys-diary\/reviews\/\">Diary\u00a0Reviews<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The early <a href=\"https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/mary-hardys-world\/reviews\/\">reviews<\/a> for the commentary volumes <em>Mary Hardy and her World <\/em>are crammed full of superlatives. One <a href=\"https:\/\/www.burnham-press.co.uk\/archive\/mary-hardys-world\/reviews\/a-work-that-will-stand-the-test-of-time\/\">Amazon reviewer<\/a> regards the study as a classic that will stand the test of time\u2014in the mould of Edward Gibbon&#8217;s <em>Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire<\/em> and Gilbert White&#8217;s <em>Natural History of Selborne<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h3>Peek inside<\/h3>\n<p>An American customer, Kelly McDonald of Vermont, has put together a tribute to the look of the books. Her YouTube video, which lasts just over a minute as she turns the pages, enables prospective buyers to\u00a0<a title=\"&quot;It's WONDERFULLY illustrated&quot;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7xVNnA8tmp8\" rel=\"noopener\">peek inside<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We brought out exciting new works in 2013 and 2020: the full text of an eighteenth-century English diarist and the companion volumes describing the world she knew. &nbsp; We invite you to explore this site to learn more about the diarist Mary Hardy (1733\u20131809). She is pictured at the banner in 1785, by the French [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2650,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-landing-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-17","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Burnham Press publishers of the Mary Hardy volumes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Burnham Press: publishers of the eighteenth-century diarist Mary Hardy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Burnham Press publishers of the Mary Hardy volumes\" \/>\n<meta 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