Historical research into female entrepreneurs has become a burgeoning field in recent years. However, there is still a lack of studies of businesswomen based on their personal documents, and such documents seem to be rare. This book, an appraisal of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century East-Icelandic businesswoman Pálína Waage (1864-1935), fills that gap. It investigates the agency of a small-scale female entrepreneur, primarily based on her autobiography, diaries and letters, using the methodology of the history of experience and 'lived experience'.

Sigrídur Matthíasdóttir is an independent scholar based in Iceland.