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Title: Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England by Judith Flanders ISBN: 0-393-05209-5 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: May, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: What It Means When We Say "Victorian"
Comment: Judith Flanders has written a book that is not only well conceived, well written, enlightening and informative, it is also a window to focusing the definition of the much maligned adjective 'Victorian'. Flanders writes with a fluid, novelesque style that cements her references and investigations into a fascinatingly powerful indictment of what many of us have believed to be a Golden Age. Using the unique format of going room by room through a middle class (and please note, this is not a book about the wealthy or the poverty stricken homes) English Victorian house, describing (and well illustrating!) the emphasis on appearances in the 'public sections' of the homes ( reception halls, parlors, dining rooms, libraries, living rooms) and the disparate Spartan appearances of the 'private rooms' such as the kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms, maids' quarters, Flanders is indeed describing the social mores of that era. Everything is caught up in appearances: a woman's place is in the home preparing for the return from work of the husband, keeping the children at bay, overseeing the 'help' and paying lip service and public display to the superficialities of charity work. Men's live are public; women's lives are private. One of the many interesting aspects Flanders investigates is the crudity of coping with the filth of the homes - from the gaslight lamps, the soot from Industrialization, the lack of knowledge about bacterial contamination in food handling, the disgust of the mud and manure encrusted streets and shoes, etc. If ever there were explanations for the dichotomies that inhabit the literature, art, music, politics, gender problems of the late 19th century, they are here well documented by a first-rate writer. No matter your reasons for wanting to investigate the Victorian Era, this wise and very entertainingly informative book is an excellent resource. An excellent book on many levels and well worth your reading time!
Rating: 5
Summary: Totally absorbing. A must for Genealogists!
Comment: I cannot say enough kind words about this book. The author has spent countless months, if not years, putting this book together and it shows. As the family historian, I've been looking for something to really give me some information about how my relatives lived in the Victorian age and the only books I have been able to find have been either political or pertaining to the Upper Class. This book details life of the average middle and lower class person and is so incredibly detailed I cannot put it down.
Rating: 5
Summary: A wonderful peek into the Victorian lifestyle
Comment: While there are many accounts of life for the upper classes in Victorian England, and on the working classes too, Judith Flanders has chosen to focus on daily life for the Victorian middle class, which exploded in England during the 19th century. With greater buying power and social influence than ever before, they created a lifestyle that still echos in ours today. And they were responsible for that English institution: the Victorian terrace house.
"Inside the Victorian Home" takes us through every room in such a house, and describes not only what happened there, but why. For example, the chapter entitled "The Scullery" outlines the multiple steps involved in doing one load of washing. We also learn how hard it was to keep a house clean in a time when coal dust coated everything, the difference between what boys and girls were expected to learn in the school room, and how the Victorians treated illnesses at home. Many of these are taken from diaries and letters, real life accounts.
But behind all of this domestic detail, the book tells us WHY all of this was so important to the Victorians. It underlines the moral climate of the time: "A man's home is his castle", and "Cleanliness is next to godliness" - sayings which became the virtues every family strove to display by the way they lived their domestic life. We are told how most of this responsibility fell to women. As mistress of the house, a Victorian wife proved the moral standing of her family not only by the way she behaved, but also by how clean her house was, how she regulated the servants and children, and how she handled the household accounts. All these were just as much expressions of respectability as marital fidelity or going to church.
Social changes are also explained to give context to Victorian daily life. For example, dinner was served in courses (entree, main, dessert) for the first time in the Victorian era. This is because servants became affordable for the middle classes, and this was a good way to show them off. Before this, all courses were set on the table at once, and guests served themselves. The social proprieties for engagement, marriage and mourning are also discussed in fascinating detail.
Inside the Victorian Home dispels the romantic view many of us have of the era, and instead gives us something real and alive, which we can relate to. Domestic details and social and moral conditions are blended to give an eye-opening account of the time. The book is well written and easy to read. I highly recommend it.
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Title: American Jezebel : The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans by Eve LaPlante ISBN: 0060562331 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 02 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Reformation: A History by Diarmaid MacCulloch ISBN: 0670032964 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 03 May, 2004 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: Albion : Origins of the English Imagination by PETER ACKROYD ISBN: 0385497725 Publisher: Nan A. Talese Pub. Date: 21 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
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Title: America's Women : Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines by Gail Collins ISBN: 0060185104 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 23 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The Poems of Marianne Moore by Marianne Moore, Grace Schulman ISBN: 0670031984 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 23 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
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