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This title in other formats:Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian Englandby Judith Flanders
Review-a-Day (What is Review-a-Day?)"[I]n many ways we have a more detailed and sophisticated understanding of the mental and spiritual world and daily habits of upper-middle-class women in London in the 1880s than we do of upper-middle-class women in, say, Palo Alto today. Judith Flanders, who writes smoothly and cleverly, has surveyed this scholarship — along with novels, advice books, and some published letters and diaries of the period — to render a detailed and engaging portrait of middle- and upper-middle-class domesticity in London from 1850 to 1890." Benjamin Schwarz, The Atlantic Monthly (read the entire Atlantic Monthly review) Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:The Victorian Age is much closer to us in time than we might believe. Yet at that time, in the most technologically advanced nation in the world, people buried meat in fresh earth to prevent mold forming and wrung sheets out in boiling water with their bare hands. Such household drudgery was routinely performed by the grandparents of people still living, but the knowledge of it has passed as if it had never been. Judith Flanders's book is laid out like a Victorian house, taking you through the story of daily life from room to room. In each space she depicts the home's furnishings and decoration: from childbirth in the master bedroom, through the scullery and kitchen, the separate male and female domains of the drawing room and the parlor, and ending in the sickroom. A rich selection from diaries, letters, advice books, magazines, and paintings fills the rooms with the people and personalities of the age.
Review:"This room-by-room guide brims with delightful description and discussion of the Victorians and their domestic environments. Flanders (A Circle of Sisters, which was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award) evokes the period's intimate preoccupations by drawing on a variety of sources: extracts from Dickens, Gissing, Jane Carlyle, Gaskell, Trollope and Beatrix Potter, among many other authors; line drawings, period paintings and advertisements; and snippets by the numerous magazine advice writers of the era, including the influential household experts Mrs. Panton and Mrs. Beeton. Flanders makes particularly clever use of commentaries by alienated overseas visitors to Britain, highlighting national customs of the period. She weaves these materials into an absorbing cradle-to-grave story of life in the urban upper-middle-class household. Although working-class life is overlooked, the work of the servants who tended the bourgeois home is rendered in vivid, often harrowing detail and with great attention to class boundaries and tensions. Particularly informative are the journal entries of domestic servant Hannah Cullwick, encouraged to record her days' work by naughty gentleman Arthur Munby (who later became her clandestine husband). Flanders is unflinching on the realities of dirt, childbirth, women's bodies and serious illness. Her intelligent, and unromanticized scrutiny of Victorian domestic custom, etiquette and style will greatly enhance readers' understanding of the period's social history, its literature, and visual and decorative arts. Aware of the power of family life to determine attitudes toward gender, childhood, education and health, Flanders is sensitive to the otherness of the period, translating its strangeness without resorting to anachronism. 24 pages of color illus. and b&w illus. throughout. (May)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Book News Annotation:Structuring her book according to the rooms of the typical British
Victorian home, the author takes the reader on a guided tour of
everyday family life in London of the 19th century. With chapters on
the bedroom, the nursery, the kitchen, the scullery, the drawing
room, and so on, she describes the typical social life of middle
class Victorians, looking at the activities reserved for each room
and discussing what these details of daily living reveal about the
social assumptions and attitudes of their occupants. She draws on a
range of source material for her exploration, from the diaries of a
household maid to the writings of prominent figures such as Charles
Darwin, Charles Dickens, Florence Nightingale, and Beatrix Potter.
Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Review:"Flanders provides a book so fascinating that it yields at least one surprise — and often many more than that — on each page." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review:"This book is filled with details that bring the Victorian London home so vividly alive that you can smell it and feel it." Cheryl Mendelson, author of Home Comforts
Review:"Flanders brings the Victorian family into deft and vivid focus." Irena Murray, chief curator of rare books and special collections, McGill University
Review:"Flanders is such a good writer and so acute a social analyst." Nina Auerbach, author of Daphne du Marieur: Haunted Heiress and editor of Forbidden Journeys: Fairy Tales and Fantasies by Victorian Women Writers
Review:"Fearsomely entertaining and yet a wonderful addition to academic literature, this book is sure to become a classic." Library Journal
Synopsis:A rich selection from diaries, letters, advice books, magazines, and paintings creates a rooms-by-room portrait of Victorian life — from childbirth in the master bedroom to separate gender domains in the drawing room and parlor.
About the AuthorJudith Flanders is the author of A Circle of Sisters, which was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award. She lives in London. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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