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The Landlady

Her house, her rules, her story

Her house, her rules, her story

The Landlady

The Landlady examines how women who own, run, or let property have been imagined and represented, from boarding houses to small-scale landlords. It is a guide to the cultural and practical questions that surround the landlady as a figure of domestic authority, economic independence, and everyday housing.

14 entries · 3 Section

A vintage television set in a shared living room, a landlady chair with knitting beside it
FM-005A vintage television set in a shared living room, a landlady chair with knitting beside it. Illustrative image, generated with AI.

Fiction and Media ·

The Landlady as Comic Type on Television

Television has long used the landlady as a comic figure. This article explores her recurring roles, from nosy gatekeeper to warm-hearted surrogate mother.

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FM-004Fiction and Media

The Landlady in Gothic Fiction

Why does the landlady haunt gothic and horror stories? We explore rooms, rent, secrets and the fear of the woman who owns the door.

FM-003Fiction and Media

The Landlady in Detective Novels

Landladies in detective fiction serve as gatekeepers, witnesses, and suspects, shaping the genre's social texture from classic to contemporary.

FM-002Fiction and Media

Landlady Memoirs and Life Writing

Landlady memoirs reveal how home and business blur when a private kitchen becomes a rented room and every door has two owners.

WP-004Women and Property

Widow Landladies and Economic Survival

Why widowhood often pushed women into taking in lodgers or running a boarding house, and how property, law, and survival shaped their choices.

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Newest entries first, each with its rubrique code so you can cite it precisely.

  1. 06
    An archival reading room with a woman examining an old property deed under a lamp

    WP-003Women and Property

    Women as Property Owners in History

    Explore how women owned and managed property in Europe and North America, from coverture to boarding houses.

  2. 07
    A leather-bound legal volume open on a table beside a quill and reading glasses

    WP-002Women and Property

    Coverture and Married Women's Property

    Coverture was a common-law doctrine that suspended a married woman's legal identity, stripping her control over property. This article explains its history and impact.

  3. 08
    A kitchen table covered with a calculator, rent book, repair receipts, and a cup of tea

    WP-001Women and Property

    The Economics of the Small-Scale Landlady

    A guide to rental income and costs for first-time landladies, grounded in official UK guidance.

Margin notes

Registers

FM

Fiction and Media

How the landlady appears in novels, film, television, and popular culture.

A vintage television set in a shared living room, a landlady chair with knitting beside it

All entries

WP

Women and Property

The social and economic role of women as property owners and small landlords.

A widow in dark dress standing at the door of a modest terraced house with a room to let

All entries

BH

Boarding House History

The boarding house as a site of domestic authority, rental history, and changing ideas of home.

A handwritten house rules card pinned beside a hall mirror in an old boarding house

All entries

PLAN

The house in section

Three registers, one floor plan. Each room is a line of enquiry, and every piece published here occupies a numbered slot on the drawing.

  1. 01Fiction and MediaFM
  2. 02Women and PropertyWP
  3. 03Boarding House HistoryBH
  4. 04Corrections deskED

Elsewhere on the shelf

Entries kept by other desks, each read before it was shelved here.