Behind closed doors : at home in Georgian England /

Vickery, Amanda,

Behind closed doors : at home in Georgian England / Amanda Vickery. - New Haven : Yale University Press, 2019. - 368 pages : illustrations (black and white, and colour) ; 20 cm

Originally published: 2009.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Using an impressive range of source materials, including literary memoirs, the transcripts of burglary trials and upholsterer's ledgers, Amanda Vickery provides a detailed insight to home life in Georgian England for a wide cross section of the society. In this brilliant work, Amanda Vickery unlocks the homes of Georgian England to examine the lives of the people who lived there. Writing with her customary wit and verve, she introduces us to men and women from all walks of life: gentlewoman Anne Dormer in her stately Oxfordshire mansion, bachelor clerk and future novelist Anthony Trollope in his dreary London lodgings, genteel spinsters keeping up appearances in two rooms with yellow wallpaper, servants with only a locking box to call their own. Vickery makes ingenious use of upholsterer's ledgers, burglary trials, and other unusual sources to reveal the roles of house and home in economic survival, social success, and political representation during the long eighteenth century. Through the spread of formal visiting, the proliferation of affordable ornamental furnishings, the commercial celebration of feminine artistry at home, and the currency of the language of taste, even modest homes turned into arenas of social campaign and exhibition.

9780300245721 (pbk.) : 10.99


Households--History--England--18th century.
Society & culture: general
Architecture: interior design
Europe
18th century, c 1700 to c 1799
European history
History
Social & cultural history
General & world history
Dating, relationships, living together & marriage: advice
United Kingdom, Great Britain
Social status--History--England--18th century.
Sex role--History--England--18th century.
Social control--History--England--18th century.
Material culture--History--Great Britain--18th century.
Family and Relationships.


Great Britain--History--1714-1837.
England--Social conditions--18th century.

HQ615 / .V53 2019

306.8109 VIC