Congratulations to Alecia Simmonds on the publication of Courting: An intimate History of Love and the Law (La Trobe University Press). Over the long arc of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, pre-industrial romantic customs gave way to middle-class respectability, women used the courts to assert their rights, and the law eventually retreated from people’s romantic lives – with women, Simmonds argues, losing out in the process. Courting has been described as ‘original and provocative, witty and wise’. Congratulations Alecia!