In the final decades of the eighteenth century, a small group of women were particularly prominent as writers of educational books for women. Priscilla Wakefield was one of them, active 1770-1832 in England, Britain, Europe. Mental Improvement presents Wakefield's lessons for young people on a wide variety of topics, from whaling and seashells to painting on glass and the origin of navigation, are presented in fictional conversations of an eighteenth-century family.