Author: Tom Licence
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1782978763
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 144
Book Description
The people who lived in England before the First World War now inhabit a realm of yellow photographs. Theirs is a world fast fading from ours, yet they do not appear overly distant. Many of us can remember them as being much like ourselves. Nor is it too late for us to encounter them so intimately that we might catch ourselves worrying that we have invaded their privacy. Digging up their refuse is like peeping through the keyhole. How far off are our grandparents in reality when we can sniff the residues of their perfume, cough medicines, and face cream? If we want to know what they bought in the village store, how they stocked the kitchen cupboard, and how they fed, pampered, and cared for themselves there is no better archive than a rubbish tip within which each object reveals a story. A simple glass bottle can reveal what people were drinking, how a great brand emerged, or whether an inventor triumphed with a new design. An old tin tells us about advertising, household chores, or foreign imports, and even a broken plate can introduce us to the children in the Staffordshire potteries, who painted in the colors of a robin, crudely sketched on a cheap cup and saucer. In this highly readable and delightfully illustrated little book Tom Licence reveals how these everyday minutiae, dug from the ground, contribute to the bigger story of how our great grandparents built a throwaway society from the twin foundations of packaging and mass consumption and illustrates how our own throwaway habits were formed.
What the Victorians Threw Away
Author: Tom Licence
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1782978763
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 144
Book Description
The people who lived in England before the First World War now inhabit a realm of yellow photographs. Theirs is a world fast fading from ours, yet they do not appear overly distant. Many of us can remember them as being much like ourselves. Nor is it too late for us to encounter them so intimately that we might catch ourselves worrying that we have invaded their privacy. Digging up their refuse is like peeping through the keyhole. How far off are our grandparents in reality when we can sniff the residues of their perfume, cough medicines, and face cream? If we want to know what they bought in the village store, how they stocked the kitchen cupboard, and how they fed, pampered, and cared for themselves there is no better archive than a rubbish tip within which each object reveals a story. A simple glass bottle can reveal what people were drinking, how a great brand emerged, or whether an inventor triumphed with a new design. An old tin tells us about advertising, household chores, or foreign imports, and even a broken plate can introduce us to the children in the Staffordshire potteries, who painted in the colors of a robin, crudely sketched on a cheap cup and saucer. In this highly readable and delightfully illustrated little book Tom Licence reveals how these everyday minutiae, dug from the ground, contribute to the bigger story of how our great grandparents built a throwaway society from the twin foundations of packaging and mass consumption and illustrates how our own throwaway habits were formed.
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1782978763
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 144
Book Description
The people who lived in England before the First World War now inhabit a realm of yellow photographs. Theirs is a world fast fading from ours, yet they do not appear overly distant. Many of us can remember them as being much like ourselves. Nor is it too late for us to encounter them so intimately that we might catch ourselves worrying that we have invaded their privacy. Digging up their refuse is like peeping through the keyhole. How far off are our grandparents in reality when we can sniff the residues of their perfume, cough medicines, and face cream? If we want to know what they bought in the village store, how they stocked the kitchen cupboard, and how they fed, pampered, and cared for themselves there is no better archive than a rubbish tip within which each object reveals a story. A simple glass bottle can reveal what people were drinking, how a great brand emerged, or whether an inventor triumphed with a new design. An old tin tells us about advertising, household chores, or foreign imports, and even a broken plate can introduce us to the children in the Staffordshire potteries, who painted in the colors of a robin, crudely sketched on a cheap cup and saucer. In this highly readable and delightfully illustrated little book Tom Licence reveals how these everyday minutiae, dug from the ground, contribute to the bigger story of how our great grandparents built a throwaway society from the twin foundations of packaging and mass consumption and illustrates how our own throwaway habits were formed.
What the Victorians Threw Away
Author: Tom Licence
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 178297878X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 121
Book Description
The people who lived in England before the First World War now inhabit a realm of yellow photographs. Theirs is a world fast fading from ours, yet they do not appear overly distant. Many of us can remember them as being much like ourselves. Nor is it too late for us to encounter them so intimately that we might catch ourselves worrying that we have invaded their privacy. Digging up their refuse is like peeping through the keyhole. How far off are our grandparents in reality when we can sniff the residues of their perfume, cough medicines, and face cream? If we want to know what they bought in the village store, how they stocked the kitchen cupboard, and how they fed, pampered, and cared for themselves there is no better archive than a rubbish tip within which each object reveals a story. A simple glass bottle can reveal what people were drinking, how a great brand emerged, or whether an inventor triumphed with a new design. An old tin tells us about advertising, household chores, or foreign imports, and even a broken plate can introduce us to the children in the Staffordshire potteries, who painted in the colors of a robin, crudely sketched on a cheap cup and saucer. In this highly readable and delightfully illustrated little book Tom Licence reveals how these everyday minutiae, dug from the ground, contribute to the bigger story of how our great grandparents built a throwaway society from the twin foundations of packaging and mass consumption and illustrates how our own throwaway habits were formed.
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 178297878X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 121
Book Description
The people who lived in England before the First World War now inhabit a realm of yellow photographs. Theirs is a world fast fading from ours, yet they do not appear overly distant. Many of us can remember them as being much like ourselves. Nor is it too late for us to encounter them so intimately that we might catch ourselves worrying that we have invaded their privacy. Digging up their refuse is like peeping through the keyhole. How far off are our grandparents in reality when we can sniff the residues of their perfume, cough medicines, and face cream? If we want to know what they bought in the village store, how they stocked the kitchen cupboard, and how they fed, pampered, and cared for themselves there is no better archive than a rubbish tip within which each object reveals a story. A simple glass bottle can reveal what people were drinking, how a great brand emerged, or whether an inventor triumphed with a new design. An old tin tells us about advertising, household chores, or foreign imports, and even a broken plate can introduce us to the children in the Staffordshire potteries, who painted in the colors of a robin, crudely sketched on a cheap cup and saucer. In this highly readable and delightfully illustrated little book Tom Licence reveals how these everyday minutiae, dug from the ground, contribute to the bigger story of how our great grandparents built a throwaway society from the twin foundations of packaging and mass consumption and illustrates how our own throwaway habits were formed.
Dirty Old London
Author: Lee Jackson
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300192053
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300
Book Description
In Victorian London, filth was everywhere: horse traffic filled the streets with dung, household rubbish went uncollected, cesspools brimmed with "night soil," graveyards teemed with rotting corpses, the air itself was choked with smoke. In this intimately visceral book, Lee Jackson guides us through the underbelly of the Victorian metropolis, introducing us to the men and women who struggled to stem a rising tide of pollution and dirt, and the forces that opposed them. Through thematic chapters, Jackson describes how Victorian reformers met with both triumph and disaster. Full of individual stories and overlooked details--from the dustmen who grew rich from recycling, to the peculiar history of the public toilet--this riveting book gives us a fresh insight into the minutiae of daily life and the wider challenges posed by the unprecedented growth of the Victorian capital.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300192053
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300
Book Description
In Victorian London, filth was everywhere: horse traffic filled the streets with dung, household rubbish went uncollected, cesspools brimmed with "night soil," graveyards teemed with rotting corpses, the air itself was choked with smoke. In this intimately visceral book, Lee Jackson guides us through the underbelly of the Victorian metropolis, introducing us to the men and women who struggled to stem a rising tide of pollution and dirt, and the forces that opposed them. Through thematic chapters, Jackson describes how Victorian reformers met with both triumph and disaster. Full of individual stories and overlooked details--from the dustmen who grew rich from recycling, to the peculiar history of the public toilet--this riveting book gives us a fresh insight into the minutiae of daily life and the wider challenges posed by the unprecedented growth of the Victorian capital.
Inventing the Victorians
Author: Matthew Sweet
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1466872713
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
"Suppose that everything we think we know about the Victorians is wrong." So begins Inventing the Victorians by Matthew Sweet, a compact and mind-bending whirlwind tour through the soul of the nineteenth century, and a round debunking of our assumptions about it. The Victorians have been victims of the "the enormous condescension of posterity," in the historian E. P. Thompson's phrase. Locked in the drawing room, theirs was an age when, supposedly, existence was stultifying, dank, and over-furnished, and when behavior conformed so rigorously to proprieties that the repressed results put Freud into business. We think we have the Victorians pegged--as self-righteous, imperialist, racist, materialist, hypocritical and, worst of all, earnest. Oh how wrong we are, argues Matthew Sweet in this highly entertaining, provocative, and illuminating look at our great, and great-great, grandparents. One hundred years after Queen Victoria's death, Sweet forces us to think again about her century, entombed in our minds by Dickens, the Elephant Man, Sweeney Todd, and by images of unfettered capitalism and grinding poverty. Sweet believes not only that we're wrong about the Victorians but profoundly indebted to them. In ways we have been slow to acknowledge, their age and our own remain closely intertwined. The Victorians invented the theme park, the shopping mall, the movies, the penny arcade, the roller coaster, the crime novel, and the sensational newspaper story. Sweet also argues that our twenty-first century smugness about how far we have evolved is misplaced. The Victorians were less racist than we are, less religious, less violent, and less intolerant. Far from being an outcast, Oscar Wilde was a fairly typical Victorian man; the love that dared not speak its name was declared itself fairly openly. In 1868 the first international cricket match was played between an English team and an Australian team composed entirely of aborigines. The Victorians loved sensation, novelty, scandal, weekend getaways, and the latest conveniences (by 1869, there were image-capable telegraphs; in 1873 a store had a machine that dispensed milk to after-hours' shoppers). Does all this sound familiar? As Sweet proves in this fascinating, eye-opening book, the reflection we find in the mirror of the nineteenth century is our own. We inhabit buildings built by the Victorians; some of us use their sewer system and ride on the railways they built. We dismiss them because they are the age against whom we have defined our own. In brilliant style, Inventing the Victorians shows how much we have been missing.
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1466872713
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
"Suppose that everything we think we know about the Victorians is wrong." So begins Inventing the Victorians by Matthew Sweet, a compact and mind-bending whirlwind tour through the soul of the nineteenth century, and a round debunking of our assumptions about it. The Victorians have been victims of the "the enormous condescension of posterity," in the historian E. P. Thompson's phrase. Locked in the drawing room, theirs was an age when, supposedly, existence was stultifying, dank, and over-furnished, and when behavior conformed so rigorously to proprieties that the repressed results put Freud into business. We think we have the Victorians pegged--as self-righteous, imperialist, racist, materialist, hypocritical and, worst of all, earnest. Oh how wrong we are, argues Matthew Sweet in this highly entertaining, provocative, and illuminating look at our great, and great-great, grandparents. One hundred years after Queen Victoria's death, Sweet forces us to think again about her century, entombed in our minds by Dickens, the Elephant Man, Sweeney Todd, and by images of unfettered capitalism and grinding poverty. Sweet believes not only that we're wrong about the Victorians but profoundly indebted to them. In ways we have been slow to acknowledge, their age and our own remain closely intertwined. The Victorians invented the theme park, the shopping mall, the movies, the penny arcade, the roller coaster, the crime novel, and the sensational newspaper story. Sweet also argues that our twenty-first century smugness about how far we have evolved is misplaced. The Victorians were less racist than we are, less religious, less violent, and less intolerant. Far from being an outcast, Oscar Wilde was a fairly typical Victorian man; the love that dared not speak its name was declared itself fairly openly. In 1868 the first international cricket match was played between an English team and an Australian team composed entirely of aborigines. The Victorians loved sensation, novelty, scandal, weekend getaways, and the latest conveniences (by 1869, there were image-capable telegraphs; in 1873 a store had a machine that dispensed milk to after-hours' shoppers). Does all this sound familiar? As Sweet proves in this fascinating, eye-opening book, the reflection we find in the mirror of the nineteenth century is our own. We inhabit buildings built by the Victorians; some of us use their sewer system and ride on the railways they built. We dismiss them because they are the age against whom we have defined our own. In brilliant style, Inventing the Victorians shows how much we have been missing.
The Sinner's Grand Tour
Author: Tony Perrottet
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307592189
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
Sex and travel have always been intertwined, and never more so than on the classic Grand Tour of Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Today the Continent is still littered with salacious remnants of that golden age, where secret boudoirs, notorious dungeons, and forbidden artifacts lured travelers all the way from London to Capri. In The Sinner’s Grand Tour, celebrated historian and travel writer Tony Perrottet sets off to discover a string of legendary sites and relics that are still kept far from public view. In southern France, an ancient text leads him inside the château of the Marquis de Sade, now owned by fashion icon Pierre Cardin. In Paris, an 1883 prostitute guide helps him discover the Belle Époque fantasy brothel Le Chabanais and the lost “sex chair” of King Edward VII. Renaissance documents in the Vatican Secret Archives point the way to the Pope’s very own apartments in Vatican City, wherein lies the fabled Stufetta del Bibbiena, a pornography-covered bathroom painted by Raphael in 1516. With his unique blend of original research, sharp wit, and hilarious anecdotes, Perrottet brings us a romping travel adventure through the scandalous backrooms of historical Europe.
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307592189
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
Sex and travel have always been intertwined, and never more so than on the classic Grand Tour of Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Today the Continent is still littered with salacious remnants of that golden age, where secret boudoirs, notorious dungeons, and forbidden artifacts lured travelers all the way from London to Capri. In The Sinner’s Grand Tour, celebrated historian and travel writer Tony Perrottet sets off to discover a string of legendary sites and relics that are still kept far from public view. In southern France, an ancient text leads him inside the château of the Marquis de Sade, now owned by fashion icon Pierre Cardin. In Paris, an 1883 prostitute guide helps him discover the Belle Époque fantasy brothel Le Chabanais and the lost “sex chair” of King Edward VII. Renaissance documents in the Vatican Secret Archives point the way to the Pope’s very own apartments in Vatican City, wherein lies the fabled Stufetta del Bibbiena, a pornography-covered bathroom painted by Raphael in 1516. With his unique blend of original research, sharp wit, and hilarious anecdotes, Perrottet brings us a romping travel adventure through the scandalous backrooms of historical Europe.
The Absent-Minded Imperialists
Author: Bernard Porter
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191513415
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 498
Book Description
The British empire was a huge enterprise. To foreigners it more or less defined Britain in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its repercussions in the wider world are still with us today. It also had a great impact on Britain herself: for example, on her economy, security, population, and eating habits. One might expect this to have been reflected in her society and culture. Indeed, this has now become the conventional wisdom: that Britain was steeped in imperialism domestically, which affected (or infected) almost everything Britons thought, felt, and did. This is the first book to examine this assumption critically against the broader background of contemporary British society. Bernard Porter, a leading imperial historian, argues that the empire had a far lower profile in Britain than it did abroad. Many Britons could hardly have been aware of it for most of the nineteenth century and only a small number was in any way committed to it. Between these extremes opinions differed widely over what was even meant by the empire. This depended largely on class, and even when people were aware of the empire, it had no appreciable impact on their thinking about anything else. Indeed, the influence far more often went the other way, with perceptions of the empire being affected (or distorted) by more powerful domestic discourses. Although Britain was an imperial nation in this period, she was never a genuine imperial society. As well as showing how this was possible, Porter also discusses the implications of this attitude for Britain and her empire, and for the relationship between culture and imperialism more generally, bringing his study up to date by including the case of the present-day USA.
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191513415
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 498
Book Description
The British empire was a huge enterprise. To foreigners it more or less defined Britain in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its repercussions in the wider world are still with us today. It also had a great impact on Britain herself: for example, on her economy, security, population, and eating habits. One might expect this to have been reflected in her society and culture. Indeed, this has now become the conventional wisdom: that Britain was steeped in imperialism domestically, which affected (or infected) almost everything Britons thought, felt, and did. This is the first book to examine this assumption critically against the broader background of contemporary British society. Bernard Porter, a leading imperial historian, argues that the empire had a far lower profile in Britain than it did abroad. Many Britons could hardly have been aware of it for most of the nineteenth century and only a small number was in any way committed to it. Between these extremes opinions differed widely over what was even meant by the empire. This depended largely on class, and even when people were aware of the empire, it had no appreciable impact on their thinking about anything else. Indeed, the influence far more often went the other way, with perceptions of the empire being affected (or distorted) by more powerful domestic discourses. Although Britain was an imperial nation in this period, she was never a genuine imperial society. As well as showing how this was possible, Porter also discusses the implications of this attitude for Britain and her empire, and for the relationship between culture and imperialism more generally, bringing his study up to date by including the case of the present-day USA.
Digging for Treasure
Author: Ron Dale
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1479714763
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 82
Book Description
Digging for Treasure could possibly have been titled "Memoirs of a Dump Digger," as although it is a practical book packed with know-how gained by the author over a number of years, all the information passed on through the book is from the author's own real-life experiences. Digging into Victorian and Edwardian rubbish dumps may seem a crazy way to earn a living, but many thousands of people in Britain alone have been involved in such a hobby part-time since the 1970s. It all started in the U.S.A. in the 1950s when old frontier towns were searched for their throwaway bottles. The patent quack medicine bottles of the 19th century proved a fascinating subject of research. Dump- digging soon spread to Canada and the U.K. and is also particularly strong in Australia. The finds in old refuse are not just bottles. In a century when local chemists made their own toothpaste in the back of the shop, it was sold in small ceramic pots with lids which had printed advertising on them under the glaze. Chemists could design their own advertising lids and the individuality and naivety of these is part of their charm. This was a time before the invention of the squeezable tube which we use today for toothpaste, creams and ointments. Ointments claiming to cure a wide variety of illnesses were sold in these pots, something which is illegal today. Ointments can alleviate or soothe problems, but they cannot claim to cure! In Digging for Treasure the author points out that once a dump has been emptied of its finds by hordes of collector-diggers, they have to constantly be searching for other sites. This has become a problem today as gradually more and more old rubbish dumps disappear under the building of trading estates, car parks and housing estates. Whilst this is admittedly true, the author believes there are still some town dumps yet to be found, although fast disappearing. Also he advocates the re-digging of sites which were inefficiently dug by zealous collectors the first time around. Victorian refuse dumps yield a wide variety of glass bottles, printed stoneware and ceramic pots and advertising lids, clay pipes with decorated bowls, china dolls' heads, brown salt-glazed stoneware bottles and jars. Some of the rarer bottles and pot-lids are now selling for several hundreds of pounds and the very rare up to £5,000. As sites become even more difficult to find, this trend for higher prices must continue. The author points the way to the future in what he describes as the "forgotten dumps." In the book he describes the research he has done on the collection of refuse in the U.K. which is a subject most of us pay scant attention to. Many would believe that there has always been a collection of our waste, but this is not so. In many towns and villages, the collection of household waste was not organised until after 1900. The smaller the village, the later was collection introduced. Although in London and a few other large cities, refuse collection began from about the 1880s, some small villages did not have this facility until about 1920. As town dumps gradually disappear under buildings, the author points the way forward for dump-diggers of the future what he calls the forgotten dumps and he claims there are tens of thousands of them to be found. The hobby of bottle-collecting also covers the collecting of pot-lids and other finds and in all English-speaking countries there are clubs, magazines and auctions to cater for collectors. Online auctions on e-bay for antique bottles and pot-lids receive bids from all over the world. Bottles and pot-lids are big business and for anyone wishing to dig up their own antiques, this book is indispensable.
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1479714763
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 82
Book Description
Digging for Treasure could possibly have been titled "Memoirs of a Dump Digger," as although it is a practical book packed with know-how gained by the author over a number of years, all the information passed on through the book is from the author's own real-life experiences. Digging into Victorian and Edwardian rubbish dumps may seem a crazy way to earn a living, but many thousands of people in Britain alone have been involved in such a hobby part-time since the 1970s. It all started in the U.S.A. in the 1950s when old frontier towns were searched for their throwaway bottles. The patent quack medicine bottles of the 19th century proved a fascinating subject of research. Dump- digging soon spread to Canada and the U.K. and is also particularly strong in Australia. The finds in old refuse are not just bottles. In a century when local chemists made their own toothpaste in the back of the shop, it was sold in small ceramic pots with lids which had printed advertising on them under the glaze. Chemists could design their own advertising lids and the individuality and naivety of these is part of their charm. This was a time before the invention of the squeezable tube which we use today for toothpaste, creams and ointments. Ointments claiming to cure a wide variety of illnesses were sold in these pots, something which is illegal today. Ointments can alleviate or soothe problems, but they cannot claim to cure! In Digging for Treasure the author points out that once a dump has been emptied of its finds by hordes of collector-diggers, they have to constantly be searching for other sites. This has become a problem today as gradually more and more old rubbish dumps disappear under the building of trading estates, car parks and housing estates. Whilst this is admittedly true, the author believes there are still some town dumps yet to be found, although fast disappearing. Also he advocates the re-digging of sites which were inefficiently dug by zealous collectors the first time around. Victorian refuse dumps yield a wide variety of glass bottles, printed stoneware and ceramic pots and advertising lids, clay pipes with decorated bowls, china dolls' heads, brown salt-glazed stoneware bottles and jars. Some of the rarer bottles and pot-lids are now selling for several hundreds of pounds and the very rare up to £5,000. As sites become even more difficult to find, this trend for higher prices must continue. The author points the way to the future in what he describes as the "forgotten dumps." In the book he describes the research he has done on the collection of refuse in the U.K. which is a subject most of us pay scant attention to. Many would believe that there has always been a collection of our waste, but this is not so. In many towns and villages, the collection of household waste was not organised until after 1900. The smaller the village, the later was collection introduced. Although in London and a few other large cities, refuse collection began from about the 1880s, some small villages did not have this facility until about 1920. As town dumps gradually disappear under buildings, the author points the way forward for dump-diggers of the future what he calls the forgotten dumps and he claims there are tens of thousands of them to be found. The hobby of bottle-collecting also covers the collecting of pot-lids and other finds and in all English-speaking countries there are clubs, magazines and auctions to cater for collectors. Online auctions on e-bay for antique bottles and pot-lids receive bids from all over the world. Bottles and pot-lids are big business and for anyone wishing to dig up their own antiques, this book is indispensable.
Raw Material
Author: Erin O'Connor
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822326168
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
Analyzes the intertwined metaphoric language of capitalism and disease in nineteenth-century England.
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822326168
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
Analyzes the intertwined metaphoric language of capitalism and disease in nineteenth-century England.
Between the Acts
Author: Virginia Woolf
Publisher: Laurus - Lexecon Kft.
ISBN: 6155643474
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 122
Book Description
In Woolf's last novel, the action takes place on one summer's day at a country house in the heart of England, where the villagers are presenting their annual pageant. A lyrical, moving valedictory.
Publisher: Laurus - Lexecon Kft.
ISBN: 6155643474
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 122
Book Description
In Woolf's last novel, the action takes place on one summer's day at a country house in the heart of England, where the villagers are presenting their annual pageant. A lyrical, moving valedictory.
Victorian Honeymoons
Author: Helena Michie
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139462962
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 266
Book Description
While Victorian tourism and Victorian sexuality have been the subject of much critical interest, there has been little research on a characteristically nineteenth-century phenomenon relating to both sex and travel: the honeymoon, or wedding journey. Although the term 'honeymoon' was coined in the eighteenth century, the ritual increased in popularity throughout the Victorian period, until by the end of the century it became a familiar accompaniment to the wedding for all but the poorest classes. Using letters and diaries of 61 real-life honeymooning couples, as well as novels from Frankenstein to Middlemarch that feature honeymoon scenarios, Michie explores the cultural meanings of the honeymoon, arguing that, with its emphasis on privacy and displacement, the honeymoon was central to emerging ideals of conjugality and to ideas of the couple as a primary social unit.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139462962
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 266
Book Description
While Victorian tourism and Victorian sexuality have been the subject of much critical interest, there has been little research on a characteristically nineteenth-century phenomenon relating to both sex and travel: the honeymoon, or wedding journey. Although the term 'honeymoon' was coined in the eighteenth century, the ritual increased in popularity throughout the Victorian period, until by the end of the century it became a familiar accompaniment to the wedding for all but the poorest classes. Using letters and diaries of 61 real-life honeymooning couples, as well as novels from Frankenstein to Middlemarch that feature honeymoon scenarios, Michie explores the cultural meanings of the honeymoon, arguing that, with its emphasis on privacy and displacement, the honeymoon was central to emerging ideals of conjugality and to ideas of the couple as a primary social unit.