The Secret History of English Spas

The Secret History of English Spas PDF Author: Melanie King
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781851244539
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
English spas have a long and steamy history, from the thermal baths of Aquae Sulis in Bath to the stews of Southwark, the elegant pump rooms of Cheltenham and Buxton to the Victorian mania for hydrotherapy and Turkish hammams. 'The Secret History of English Spas' is an informative but light-hearted social and cultural history of our obsession with drinking and bathing in spa waters. It tells the stories of the rich, the famous, the poor and the sick, all of whom visited spas in hopes of curing everything from infertility to leprosy and gonorrhoea. It depicts the entrepreneurs who promoted these resorts - often on the basis of the most dubious scientific evidence - and the riotous and salacious social life enjoyed in spa towns, where moral health might suffer even as bodies were cleansed and purged. And yet English spas also offered an ideal of civility and politeness, providing a place where social classes and sexes could mingle and enjoy refined entertainments such as music and dance - all part of the fashionable pastime referred to as 'taking the waters'.

The Secret History of English Spas

The Secret History of English Spas PDF Author: Melanie King
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781851244539
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book Here

Book Description
English spas have a long and steamy history, from the thermal baths of Aquae Sulis in Bath to the stews of Southwark, the elegant pump rooms of Cheltenham and Buxton to the Victorian mania for hydrotherapy and Turkish hammams. 'The Secret History of English Spas' is an informative but light-hearted social and cultural history of our obsession with drinking and bathing in spa waters. It tells the stories of the rich, the famous, the poor and the sick, all of whom visited spas in hopes of curing everything from infertility to leprosy and gonorrhoea. It depicts the entrepreneurs who promoted these resorts - often on the basis of the most dubious scientific evidence - and the riotous and salacious social life enjoyed in spa towns, where moral health might suffer even as bodies were cleansed and purged. And yet English spas also offered an ideal of civility and politeness, providing a place where social classes and sexes could mingle and enjoy refined entertainments such as music and dance - all part of the fashionable pastime referred to as 'taking the waters'.

British Spas from 1815 to the Present

British Spas from 1815 to the Present PDF Author: Phyllis May Hembry
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
ISBN: 9780838637487
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Phyllis Hembry, author of The English Spa 1560 to 1815, wrote about the origins and development of the spas and their flowering in the eighteenth century. Her book deals not only with their healing and recreational aspects, but also with their status as political, religious, social, and economic gathering places. Hembry had intended to produce a second volume, taking the story further, but died before being able to do so. She had gathered a considerable amount of material and written several draft chapters for this volume. Dr. and Mrs. Cowie have made use of this, revising and supplementing Hembry's text to create a study that continues to the present time and is extended to include Welsh, Scottish, and Irish spas as well.

The English Spa, 1560-1815

The English Spa, 1560-1815 PDF Author: Phyllis May Hembry
Publisher: Associated University Presse
ISBN: 9780838633915
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
Beginning in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, members of the English nobility and gentry made a practice of taking relaxation at the country's inland spas. This account shows the spas to have been not only centers of healing and recreating but also venues of intrigue extending to political, religious, economic, and social issues.

The Spas of England and Principal Sea-bathing Places

The Spas of England and Principal Sea-bathing Places PDF Author: Augustus Bozzi Granville
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Health resorts
Languages : en
Pages : 516

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Book Description


The Spas of England, and Principal Sea-bathing Places: Southern spas

The Spas of England, and Principal Sea-bathing Places: Southern spas PDF Author: Augustus Bozzi Granville
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Health resorts
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description


Spa Culture and Literature in England, 1500-1800

Spa Culture and Literature in England, 1500-1800 PDF Author: Sophie Chiari
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030665682
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
This edited collection aims at highlighting the various uses of water in sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth-century England, while exploring the tensions between those who praised the curative virtues of waters and those who rejected them for their supposedly harmful effects. Divided into three balanced sections, the collection includes contributions from renowned specialists of early modern culture and literature as well as rising young scholars as it seeks to establish a dialogue between different methodologies, and explain why the spa-related issues examined still resonate in today’s society.

The Spas of England and Principal Sea-bathing Places

The Spas of England and Principal Sea-bathing Places PDF Author: A. B. Granville
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description


English Spas

English Spas PDF Author: Sir William Wilkinson Addison
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : England
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description


The English Review

The English Review PDF Author: Ford Madox Ford
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Modernism (Literature)
Languages : en
Pages : 840

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Book Description


George Eliot's English Travels

George Eliot's English Travels PDF Author: Kathleen McCormack
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134238606
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
George Eliot’s more than fifty long and short journeys within England took her to dozens of sites scattered around the country. Revising the traditional notion that George Eliot drew her settings and characters only from the areas of her Warwickshire childhood, Kathleen McCormack demonstrates that English travel furnished the novelist with a wide variety of originals for the composite characters and settings she would so memorably create. McCormack traces the way in which George Eliot gathered material during her travels and also drafted long sections of the novels while away from her London home. She argues that by examining the choices George Eliot made in transforming, discarding or directly describing her English originals, we might take a significant step forward in the interpretation of her writings. Where other critics have tried to interpret characters as one-to-one renderings of living or dead models, for example, this study reveals more elaborate blendings of what George Eliot called the ‘widely sundered elements’ that made up her fiction. McCormack also reaches the fascinating conclusion that the novels were a form of coded communication between the author and people in her life, including other prominent Victorians such as Edward Burne-Jones, Robert Lytton and Barbara Bodichon. Presenting fresh biographical information and original insights into George Eliot’s writing strategies, George Eliot’s English Travels promises a decisive shift in our understanding of one of the most important figures in Victorian literature.