Jane Austen's England

Jane Austen's England PDF Author: Roy Adkins
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101622865
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
An authoritative account of everyday life in Regency England, the backdrop of Austen’s beloved novels, from the authors of the forthcoming Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History (March 2018) Jane Austen, arguably the greatest novelist of the English language, wrote brilliantly about the gentry and aristocracy of two centuries ago in her accounts of young women looking for love. Jane Austen’s England explores the customs and culture of the real England of her everyday existence depicted in her classic novels as well as those by Byron, Keats, and Shelley. Drawing upon a rich array of contemporary sources, including many previously unpublished manuscripts, diaries, and personal letters, Roy and Lesley Adkins vividly portray the daily lives of ordinary people, discussing topics as diverse as birth, marriage, religion, sexual practices, hygiene, highwaymen, and superstitions. From chores like fetching water to healing with medicinal leeches, from selling wives in the marketplace to buying smuggled gin, from the hardships faced by young boys and girls in the mines to the familiar sight of corpses swinging on gibbets, Jane Austen’s England offers an authoritative and gripping account that is sometimes humorous, often shocking, but always entertaining.

Jane Austen's England

Jane Austen's England PDF Author: Roy Adkins
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101622865
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 466

Get Book Here

Book Description
An authoritative account of everyday life in Regency England, the backdrop of Austen’s beloved novels, from the authors of the forthcoming Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History (March 2018) Jane Austen, arguably the greatest novelist of the English language, wrote brilliantly about the gentry and aristocracy of two centuries ago in her accounts of young women looking for love. Jane Austen’s England explores the customs and culture of the real England of her everyday existence depicted in her classic novels as well as those by Byron, Keats, and Shelley. Drawing upon a rich array of contemporary sources, including many previously unpublished manuscripts, diaries, and personal letters, Roy and Lesley Adkins vividly portray the daily lives of ordinary people, discussing topics as diverse as birth, marriage, religion, sexual practices, hygiene, highwaymen, and superstitions. From chores like fetching water to healing with medicinal leeches, from selling wives in the marketplace to buying smuggled gin, from the hardships faced by young boys and girls in the mines to the familiar sight of corpses swinging on gibbets, Jane Austen’s England offers an authoritative and gripping account that is sometimes humorous, often shocking, but always entertaining.

The Georgians

The Georgians PDF Author: Penelope J. Corfield
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300265069
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
A comprehensive history of the Georgians, comparing past views of these exciting, turbulent, and controversial times with our attitudes today The Georgian era is often seen as a time of innovations. It saw the end of monarchical absolutism, global exploration and settlements overseas, the world’s first industrial revolution, deep transformations in religious and cultural life, and Britain’s role in the international trade in enslaved Africans. But how were these changes perceived by people at the time? And how do their viewpoints compare with attitudes today? In this wide-ranging history, Penelope J. Corfield explores every aspect of Georgian life—politics and empire, culture and society, love and violence, religion and science, industry and towns. People’s responses at the time were often divided. Pessimists saw loss and decline, while optimists saw improvements and light. Out of such tensions came the Georgian culture of both experiment and resistance. Corfield emphasizes those elements of deep continuity that persisted even within major changes, and shows how new developments were challenged if their human consequences proved dire.

High Minds

High Minds PDF Author: Simon Heffer
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643139185
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 780

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Book Description
An ambitious exploration of the making of the Victorian Age—and the Victorian mind—by a master historian. Britain in the 1840s was a country wracked by poverty, unrest, and uncertainty; there were attempts to assassinate the queen and her prime minister; and the ruling class lived in fear of riot and revolution. By the 1880s it was a confident nation of progress and prosperity, transformed not just by industrialization but by new attitudes to politics, education, women, and the working class. That it should have changed so radically was very largely the work of an astonishingly dynamic and high-minded group of people—politicians and philanthropists, writers and thinkers—who in a matter of decades fundamentally remade the country, its institutions and its mindset, and laid the foundations for modern society. High Minds explores this process of transformation as it traces the evolution of British democracy and shows how early laissez-faire attitudes to the fate of the less fortunate turned into campaigns to improve their lives and prospects. The narrative analyzes the birth of new attitudes in education, religion, and science. And High Minds shows how even such aesthetic issues as taste in architecture collided with broader debates about the direction that the country should take. In the process, Simon Heffer looks at the lives and deeds of major politicians; at the intellectual arguments that raged among writers and thinkers such as Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, and Samuel Butler; and at the "great projects” of the age, from the Great Exhibition to the Albert Memorial. Drawing heavily on previously unpublished documents, he offers a superbly nuanced portrait into life in an extraordinary era, populated by extraordinary people—and show how the Victorians’ pursuit of perfection gave birth to the modern Britain we know today.

A Visitor's Guide to Georgian England

A Visitor's Guide to Georgian England PDF Author: Monica Hall
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1473876877
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
“The author has done an outstanding job of making the colorful Georgian world come alive in all its contradictory, bawdy, and utterly fascinating glory.” —Britain Express Could you successfully be a Georgian? Find yourself immersed in the pivotal world of Georgian England, exciting times to live in. Everything was booming—the Industrial Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the nascent Empire—in an era inhabited by Mary Shelley, the Romantic poets, and their contemporaries. Find everything you need to know in order to survive as a time traveler from today, undetected among the ordinary people: how to dress, behave yourself in public, earn a living, and find somewhere to live. Just as importantly, you will be given advice on how to stay on the right side of the law, and how to avoid getting seriously ill. Monica Hall creatively evokes this bygone era, filling the pages of this book with all aspects of daily life within the period, calling upon diaries, illustrations, letters, poetry, prose, eighteenth century laws, and archives. This detailed account intimately explores the ever-changing lives of those who lived through Britain’s imperial prowess, the birth of modern capitalism, and the upheaval of the industrial revolution, major political reform, and class division. “A fantastic piece of social history that fills in a huge number of gaps in our knowledge. First class entertainment and educational at the same time!” —Books Monthly

Georgian Jewellery 1714-1830

Georgian Jewellery 1714-1830 PDF Author: Ginny Redington Dawes
Publisher: Acc Art Books
ISBN: 9781851499212
Category : Jewelry
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Georgian Jewellery is a celebration of the style and excellence of the eighteenth century, and of the ingenuity that produced such a wealth of fabulous jewellery. Heavy academic tomes have already been written about the period, but this book examines it in a more colourful and accessible way. The book aims to show that Georgian jewellery is not only the stuff of museums and safe boxes, but that it can be worn as elegantly and fashionably today as it was 200 years ago. Much disparate information about the jewellery has been gathered together and the period is brought alive by portraits and character sketches of famous Georgians in their finery, fashion tips, gossip, and some rather outrageous cartoons of the time, as well as fascinating recently discovered facts. With information on how to identify, buy and repair pieces, this sumptuously illustrated volume contains the largest single catalogue of 18th Century jewellery. AUTHORS: Ginny Redington Dawes, a life-long collector of antique jewellery, has written two previous books on the subject - The Bakelite Jewellery Book and Victorian Jewellery. Staff writer for MGM Screengems Music, she is also a successful composer; she wrote the book, music and lyrics for the off-Broadway show The Talk of the Town and has won a CLEO award for music for advertising. Olivia Collings became fascinated by the seventeenth century alchemist and jeweller Christopher Pinchbeck at an early age and bought her first piece of antique jewellery aged seven. She trained in an exclusive Bond Street antique jewellery shop before starting her own business in 1975 and has continued learning about and dealing in Georgian jewellery ever since. She is now an independent jewellery consultant. SELLING POINTS: * A thoroughly researched look at the jewellery of the time, offering good basic knowledge for the beginner and new facts for the expert * New and/or little-known facts about the techniques, styles and materials of the age * The only book solely on the Georgian period, and the largest ever catalogue of the diverse range of eighteenth century jewellery * Interesting portraits of characters of the period and their influence on the jewels of the time, with some contemporary gossip, outrageous cartoons and period fashion tips * Emphasis on jewellery that has been on the open market in recent years, rather than just unobtainable museum pieces 295 colour, 7 b/w images

Behind Closed Doors

Behind Closed Doors PDF Author: Amanda Vickery
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300188560
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
From the award-winning author of The Gentleman’s Daughter,a witty and academic illumination of daily domestic life in Georgian England. 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. The basis of a 3-part TV series for BBC2. “Vickery is that rare thing, an…historian who writes like a novelist.”—Jane Schilling, Daily Mail “Comparison between Vickery and Jane Austen is irresistible…This book is almost too pleasurable, in that Vickery's style and delicious nosiness conceal some seriously weighty scholarship.”—Lisa Hilton, The Independent “If until now the Georgian home has been like a monochrome engraving, Vickery has made it three dimensional and vibrantly colored. Behind Closed Doors demonstrates that rigorous academic work can also be nosy, gossipy, and utterly engaging.”—Andrea Wulf, New York Times Book Review

Dark Days of Georgian Britain

Dark Days of Georgian Britain PDF Author: James Hobson
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1526702568
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
A historian reveals the grittier side of Regency England, far from the country houses and costume balls of high society. Often upheld as a period of elegance with many achievements in the fine arts and architecture, the Regency era also encompassed a time of great social, political, and economic upheaval. In this insightful social history, the emphasis is on the lives of those not born into nobility—what it was like for the poor, and what challenges they faced. Using a wide range of sources, James Hobson shares the stories of real people. He explores corruption in government and elections, “bread or blood” rioting, the political discontent felt, and the revolutionaries involved. He explores attitudes to adultery and marriage, and the moral panic about homosexuality. Grave robbery is exposed, along with the sharp pinch of food scarcity, prison, and punishment. Venturing beyond the images we have from Jane Austen’s novels or costume-drama films, this book reveals a society where the popular hatred of the Prince Regent was widespread and where laws and new capitalist attitudes oppressed the poor—a society in the throes of change.

Georgian & Regency Houses Explained

Georgian & Regency Houses Explained PDF Author: Trevor Yorke
Publisher: Countryside Books (GB)
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
The Georgian and Regency house conjures up a distinct and much admired image. Elegance, refinement and beautiful proportions have made this period an inspiration for later architects and a popular choice for today's house buyer. Using his own drawings, diagrams and photographs, author Trevor Yorke explains all aspects of the Georgian and Regency house and provides a comprehensive guide to the homes and houses of this notable period. The book is divided into three sections, outlining the history of the period; stepping inside the different rooms and their fittings, what they were used for and how they would have appeared; and the final section contains a quick reference guide with notes on dating houses, suggestions for further reading, a glossary of unfamiliar terms and details of places to visit

Trailblazing Women of the Georgian Era

Trailblazing Women of the Georgian Era PDF Author: Mike Rendell
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473886074
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Trailblazing Women of the Georgian Era offers a fascinating insight into the world of female inequality in the Eighteenth Century. It looks at the reasons for that inequality the legal barriers, the lack of education, the prejudices and misconceptions held by men and also examines the reluctance of women to compete on an equal footing. Why did so many women accept that a womans place was in the home?' Using seventeen case studies of women who succeeded despite all the barriers and opposition, the author asks why, in the light of their success, so little progress was made in the Victorian era.Representing women from all walks of life; artists, business women, philanthropists, inventors and industrialists, the book examines the way that the Quaker movement, with its doctrine of equality between men and women, spawned so many successful businesses and helped propel women to the forefront. In the 225 years since the publication of Mary Wollstonecrafts A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, questions remain as to why those noble ideas about equality were left to founder during the Victorian era? And why are there still so many areas where, for historical reasons, equality is still a mirage?

Georgian Architecture

Georgian Architecture PDF Author: James Curl
Publisher: David & Charles
ISBN: 9780715302279
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Examining the period's remarkable stylistic diversity, this is an illustrated guide to the architecture of the reigns of the first four Georges (1714-1830).