What Jane Austen ate and Charles Dickens knew, Daniel Pool

From Fox Hunting to Whist - the Facts of Daily Life in 19th-Century England
For the reader approaching nineteenth English literature for the first time, it is likely to be most useful as a reference. The inclusion in the glossary of many words whose meaning hasn't changed appreciably since last century — "diocese", "mastiff", and "rank", for example — is a little odd. Combined with repeated explanation of the difference between the American and British use of "first floor", it suggests that the intended audience is American college students with little or no knowledge of English history and culture.