The Gilded Cage of Woman

The Intimate Memoir of Margaret Bryan (1757–1836)

​Even the most privileged woman’s glass ceiling in Georgian England was limited to a wealthy, titled husband and, if all things went well, perpetual pregnancy—boys first, please. But despite the pressures on her to marry, headstrong and intelligent Margaret Bryan, always drawn more to numbers and stars than needles and threads, determines early in her life to courageously chart her own path to a world-class scientific education and an occupation of herown choosing.

When she comes into an inheritance, Margaret opens her own school to teach girls math and science. With her newfound independence, she also gains the friendship of two of England’s most influential female nobility, who teach her how to play the game of social image to advance her publishing agenda. Drawn into this new and mysterious world of the London Ton and Royal Society, Margaret also finds personal happiness, even in the face of adversity, through her non-conventional family and the attentions of a progressive royal prince. 

Drawing from her own years of research on this extraordinary historical figure, Jayne Catherine Conway tells the forgotten story of her distant relative: a respected mathematician, astronomer, educator, and author who overcame tremendous societal oppression to redefine the limitations of her destined life.

Investigating conversations around the generational abuse of institutional power, Jayne’s emotional literary debut draws comparisons to our present-day society, illuminating how history has for far too long confined women to “thegilded cage.”