The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain: 1789-1837

Book Description

Ben Wilson's The Making of Victorian Values is the history of an era rather like our own-a time when dissenters and rebels were hemmed in by conformists and hardheaded authoritarians, a time when a nation on the eve of global domination fretted about its future. It was, however, a period when those who argued that a British empire would be a disaster for liberty were eventually squashed by imperialists, just as those who railed against mindless materialism were in the end rolled over by industrialists and the promoters of luxury goods. The Making of Victorian Values reveals an era when people were obsessed with the need to appear authentic, and yet forever had doubts about who was and who wasn't-concerns familiar to the "me" age we know so well.

Wilson begins with the libertine spirit inspired by Byron, Shelley, and the Romantics; he ends with the rise and eventual victory of stolid middle-class values. The result is a radical tour de force, a brilliant reworking of the pre-Victorian age. Once portrayed by Paul Johnson in his bestselling The Birth of the Modern as the years when virtue finally trumped corruption, Wilson reveals a far more compelling story-and a more engrossing and scandalous one, too. It is a story about hypochondriacs and cranks, killjoys and dandies, rakes and priests, advocates of free-speech and those against it-people who were made awe struck by Britain's emerging role as the economic and political powerhouse of the world, but who were also deeply anxious about the responsibilities a vast empire might require.

Wilson is heir to the great radical historians of the twentieth century, E. J. Hobsbawm and E. P. Thompson, among them. He brushes aside scholarly politesse and refuses to join in unnecessary academic point-settling, and his invigorating literary abilities will win many admirers who would otherwise know this history only through the works of nineteenth-century fiction.

Customer Reviews:

Those Virtuous Victorians.......2007-03-16

Ben Wilson's book, "The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain: 1789-1837," is very good, with a few weaknesses; and I recommend it.

Ben Wilson helps to explain how British mores developed from the profligacy and loucheness of the late eighteenth century to the refinement and respectability of the Victorian era. His book resolved some questions I've had ever since I read Amanda Foreman's book about the late-eighteenth-century Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. The duchess's behavior was very different from the typical (or at least ideal) Victorian behavior, and it highlights the changes that happened during the pre-Victorian period. Wilson argues that the rise of respectability and refinement was a result of the alliance between evangelical reformers and secular utilitarians, as well as the economic prosperity and upward mobility of the middle class (who benefited especially from the Industrial Revolution).

The middle class doesn't really come under discussion until the eleventh chapter, so its condition in the early part of the period at hand is not clear. Early in the book there is one amusing anecdote that sheds light on the state of the middle class: The sovereigns who had defeated Napoleon visited London in 1814 and supposedly asked where "the people" were. Apparently the crowds surrounding them seemed much too well-dressed to be "common folk."

Wilson's book is rich in detail from primary sources, if a little weak on analysis. The thread of his argument is not very tight throughout the body of the book, but he nicely profiles a number of writers and other influential people of the era.

There was one particular oversight, namely almost no discussion of Princess (later Queen) Victoria's upbringing. By contrast, he spends several pages on Princess Charlotte's (who never ascended the throne). Yet there is only one tantalizing hint about the nature of Victoria's rearing: in 1822, the chaplain to the duchess of Kent (Victoria's mother) considered Thomas Bowdler's "Family Shakespeare" to be offensive--so he bowdlerized it! It is of course, simplistic to say that the sovereign dictated the social mores, but no doubt Queen Victoria's respectability was influential, especially in contrast to her disreputable predecessors.

Overall, this is an enjoyable book that will appeal especially to students of nineteenth-century Britain.

Chapter summaries:

Preface: Reasons for being interested in the development of Victorian values, especially desires to revive them by current politicians on both sides of the Atlantic.

Prologue: Two points of view on the the change under discussion: the rise of politeness and decline of coarseness vs. the rise of hypocrisy and cant and decline of sincerity and authenticity.

Intro to part I, "Hypochondria: 1789-1815": Economic prosperity was intermittent; fearful and uncertain Britons took refuge in religion.

1: It became fashionable to suffer from nervous complaints (the Duchess of Bedford claimed to be immune, as she "was born before nerves were invented"). Physicians Thomas Trotter and Thomas Beddoes viewed the society's and the body's health to be intertwined and advised sexual restraint. A quack (Samuel Solomon) played on people's shame to sell his Balm of Gilead.

2: Widespread fear of revolution; the crudeness of the lower classes. Beginning of profiles of Francis Place (who rose from the lower middle class to affluence) and Patrick Colquhoun (the census analyst who attributed the lower classes' poverty to extravagance and laziness).

3: Jeremy Bentham and the effort to reform the Poor Laws and the poor (by teaching thrift and discipline). Colquhoun encouraged the rich to be rational (some people heard "coldly inhumane") in response to the problems of the poor, and not just give them money.

4: The establishment of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, and a profile of John Bowles, complete with his corruption.

5: The scandalous behavior and resulting lawsuits of the upper classes; the disconnect between love and marriage.

6: Upper classes' amusements and fashions. Profile of Beau Brummell, the trendsetting dandy who claimed to get the famous shine of his boots from champagne.

7: The protest when the Covent Garden Theatre remodeled and enclosed the boxes, thus making it impossible for people to see and be seen (especially gentlemen and their escorts).

Intro to part II, "The Arts of Peace: 1815-1821": Relief after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.

8: More efforts to reform poor relief and the Mendicity Committee's portrayal of beggars as living secretly in luxury. In reality, begging was usually preferable to the cruelty and indignity of the parish relief system. One reformer in particular viewed poverty as caused by impiety and immorality.

9: The amateur policing system, licensing of public houses, and drinking habits (subsidized gin was cheaper than the more nutritious beer).

Intro to part III, "Rich and Respectable: 1821-1837": Wealth and the speculative bubble (which burst in 1925). Progress and cant--the progress of cant, and the cant of progress.

10: Byron's publication of "Don Juan," the public outrage, and his exile. The actor Thomas Kean's rise to celebrity and subsequent fall.

11: Progress due to the Industrial Revolution, and the gentrification of the middle classes. The advent of the suit meant that a wide range of middle and upper class men all looked the same, which contributed to etiquette. Also contributing was the idea (or delusion) of upward mobility: "the impression that it [rank] was obtainable by following the fashion and obeying rules of etiquette persisted." Explains how wealth led to sexual restraint.

12: The apparent increase in crime was actually an increase in enforcement of laws against petty crimes, punishments for which had been reduced from death to hard labor.

13: Conclusion.

Men at Work: Art and Labour in Victorian Britain (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies)

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Men at Work: Art and Labour in Victorian Britain (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies)
Tim Barringer
Manufacturer: Paul Mellon Center BA
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Binding: Hardcover

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Reading the Pre-Raphaelites

ASIN: 0300103808

Book Description

For artists of the increasingly mechanized Victorian age, questions about the meaning and value of labour presented a series of urgent problems: Is work a moral obligation or a religious duty? Must labour be the preserve of men alone? Does the amount of work bestowed on a painting affect its value? Should art celebrate wholesome rural work or reveal the degradations of the industrial workplace? In this highly original book, Tim Barringer considers how artists and theorists addressed these questions and what their solutions reveal about Victorian society and culture.
Based on extensive new research, Men at Work offers a compelling study of the image as a means of exploring the relationship between labour and art in Victorian Britain. Barringer arrives at a major reinterpretation of the art and culture of nineteenth-century Britain and its empire as well as new readings of such key figures as Ford Madox Brown and John Ruskin.

Shakespeare's Victorian Stage: Performing History in the Theatre of Charles Kean

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Shakespeare's Victorian Stage: Performing History in the Theatre of Charles Kean
Richard W. Schoch
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

This is the first book to explore the revivals of Shakespeare's history plays, Henry V, Henry VIII, King John, Macbeth, and Richard II, as staged by the actor-manager Charles Kean in mid-Victorian London. These celebrated productions, renowned for their attention to antiquarian detail, provided an opportunity for audiences to participate in the Victorian obsession with history. Many illustrations are previously unpublished and the book will be of interest to scholars and students of theater history, Shakespeare studies and Victorian culture.

Three Empires on the Nile: The Victorian Jihad, 1869-1899

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Good story--poor product
Reads like a novel!
empires on the Nile
Readable recovery of important history
Popular history at its very best, and more

Three Empires on the Nile: The Victorian Jihad, 1869-1899
Dominic Green
Manufacturer: Free Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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A War of Frontier and Empire: The Philippine-American War, 1899-1902

ASIN: 0743280717

Book Description

A secular regime is toppled by Western intervention, but an Islamic backlash turns the liberators into occupiers. Caught between interventionists at home and fundamentalists abroad, a prime minister flounders as his ministers betray him, alliances fall apart, and a runaway general makes policy in the field. As the media accuse Western soldiers of barbarity and a region slides into chaos, the armies of God clash on an ancient river and an accidental empire arises.

This is not the Middle East of the early twenty-first century. It is Africa in the late nineteenth century, when the river Nile became the setting for an extraordinary collision between Europeans, Arabs, and Africans. A human and religious drama, the conflict defined the modern relationship between the West and the Islamic world. The story is not only essential for understanding the modern clash of civilizations but is also a gripping, epic, tragic adventure.

Three Empires on the Nile tells of the rise of the first modern Islamic state and its fateful encounter with the British Empire of Queen Victoria. Ever since the self-proclaimed Islamic messiah known as the Mahdi gathered an army in the Sudan and besieged and captured Khartoum under its British overlord Charles Gordon, the dream of a new caliphate has haunted modern Islamists. Today, Shiite insurgents call themselves the Mahdi Army, and Sudan remains one of the great fault lines of battle between Muslims and Christians, blacks and Arabs. The nineteenth-century origins of it all were even more dramatic and strange than today's headlines.

In the hands of Dominic Green, the story of the Nile's three empires is an epic in the tradition of Kipling, the bard of empire, and Winston Churchill, who fought in the final destruction of the Mahdi's army. It is a sweeping and very modern tale of God and globalization, slavers and strategists, missionaries and messianists. A pro-Western regime collapses from its own corruption, a jihad threatens the global economy, a liberation movement degenerates into a tyrannical cult, military intervention goes wrong, and a temporary occupation lasts for decades. In the rise and fall of empires, we see a parable for our own times and a reminder that, while American military involvement in the Islamic world is the beginning of a new era for America, it is only the latest chapter in an older story for the people of the region.

Customer Reviews:

Good story--poor product.......2007-09-04

About half of three of the cd's were unusable. They were simply silent, so we missed a good deal of the story. I will not buy from this vendor again.
John H Reed, Jr., a dissatisfied customer.

Reads like a novel!.......2007-07-25

I really enjoyed this book. This is a book about British involvement in Egypt and Sudan between 1869 and 1899. Much of the policies undertaken then by the British parliament echo present day policies in the Middle East. If you are interested in the history of the Middle East, read this book!

I most enjoyed the chapters on the Mahdi. According to Islamic traditions, the Mahdi will come to save Muslims from their imminent collapse in society and deliver them from the hands of the unbelievers (the non-Muslims). His name will be Mohammad, like the prophet be peace upon him, and his father will likewise be named Abdullah, like the prophet's father. His appearance will signal the end of days, or the coming of the Day of Judgment. During the Mahdi's lifetime, Jesus Christ will also return to rule the world, according to Islam.

It is quite clear that the self-proclaimed Sudanese Mahdi was not the awaited Mahdi Moslems all over the world are waiting for. Yet he was able to save his people from British rule, and successfully retook Khartoum and killed General Gordon after a 300 days siege. Gordon's body was mutilated, and his head severed and taken to the Mahdi. Yet in the process hundreds of thousands of Sudanese died. Was the price worth the freedom from British rule? Interestingly, the Mahdi at first refused to use guns and rifles to fight the British armies, believing that since God was on his side, guns and rifles would be unnecessary. He soon realized though that this was foolishness at its best, not to mention suicide.

Another suicidal strategy was to run in masses towards the armed British forces, equipped with rifles and cannons. Thousands of Sudanese died this way, their bodies piled on top of each other. Since any Muslim who dies in Jihad goes straight to Heaven, the Sudanese army was keener of dying in battle and going to Heaven than actually winning the battle. This attitude is clearly shown today in unnecessary terrorist attacks.

The Mahdi died quite young, in his early forties and shortly after defeating the British forces. His dreams were of conquering Egypt and then the Gulf states (Middle East), thus cutting the British forces from their Empire in the East (mainly India) and defeating the Ottoman Empire. But right after his death, chaos erupted between the Sudanese and civil war arose between them. The British forces, seeing an opportunity, re-conquered Sudan. The Mahdi's dream was destroyed.

Interestingly, during the Sudanese Mahdi's time, another self-proclaimed Mahdi appeared in Libya. However, the Libyan Mahdi did not want anything to do with the Sudanese Mahdi. This demonstrates how religion is used for political ambitions. None of them was the true awaited Mahdi, yet both believed they were.

The chapters on General Gordon (Chinese Gordon) and Mr. Gladstone were also very interesting. It is really amazing to read that Gordon was abandoned by the British during the siege of Khartoum. If only the British sent reinforcements to Gordon, the city would never have fallen and the Mahdi would have been defeated. But politicians back in London, mainly Mr. Gladstone, thought that Gordon was not in need of reinforcements, despite his repeated insistence. Politics! Politicians! Being behind a desk thousands of miles away is much different than being under the line of fire, and this is as true today as ever.

It is interesting that some in the British parliament thought that the Sudanese have a right to rule their own country and that the British forces should leave Sudan. Debates actually arose on this point, and this was one of the reasons the British forces were delayed in coming to Gordon's aid. When they finally arrived, it was too late. Gordon was dead and Khartoum had fallen. Another reason for the delay in troop deployment was that Sudan was a burden on the British economy, with more money being invested than actual returns. Sudan was not financially attractive, but rather a financial drain.

The chapters on the ruling Egyptian khedive (viceroy) Ismail Pasha were also interesting. Ismail Pasha was westernized, having been educated in Paris, and he liked living the life of an aristocrat. He spent a lot of money for his self entertainment and on acquiring land. But he also borrowed a lot of money from the British to build his country; money that he couldn't pay back. It was Ismail Pasha, together with a French engineer, who built the Suez Canal, separating the Continent of Africa from the Middle East and turning it into an island!

His administrative policies, notably the accumulation of an enormous foreign debt, were instrumental in leading to British occupation of Egypt in 1882. When he assumed power, the Egyptian national debt stood at £7,000,000; by 1876 this debt had increased to almost £100,000,000. Eventually Ismail was exiled from his country after bankrupting it and left with all his personal belongings and his personal harem (probably his most important asset) aboard a ship headed for Sicily. He never returned, yet his legacy lives on today by the city named after him, Ismailia. He died on March 2, 1895, in Istanbul.

This book reads like a novel, and apart from being informative, is very entertaining. I highly recommend it.

empires on the Nile.......2007-03-10

This was a very good book . I read a lot of History books and this is my favorite of the last few years . Anyone with an interest in the Middle East or African History will enjoy this book .

Readable recovery of important history.......2007-03-10

This is a well documented, yet very readable, recitation of British involvement in Sudan and Egpt in the years leading up to WWI, and the reverberations down to the present day. While many are aware of the actions of Kitchener and the hysterical reaction back home in England to Gordon's fate (thank you Charlton Heston), few have a clear view of the deeper objectives and consequent military and economic policies that drove England's actions. This history is a useful reminder of the importance of deeply held worldviews of two cultures riven by much, but especially religion.

Popular history at its very best, and more.......2007-01-28

Truly good popular history should inform, entertain, and provoke further thought. Green's relatively slim (266 pages) volume does all three far more effectively than many a longer tome from better-known, longer established authors. If, like me, your knowledge of European imperialism in the Middle East, Ottoman decay, the stirrings of both Arab nationalism and Islamist reawakening was pretty much framed by movies such as "Khartoum", "Lawrence of Arabia" and the works of H. Rider Haggard, this volume will make sense of a key era of history mainly perceived in the West as a time of quaintly romantic chaos.

Green makes his cast of characters, Gladstone, Gordon, the Madhi, et al come alive in ways I never recall from my collegiate history days, and frames their actions, motivations, and the results of their choices in a coherent way that provides the reader with an excellent intelligence brief, not only on the era described, but on the issues topical to the region today. Green shows with great precision how personality often drives public policy, and illustrates the apparent paradoxes of how liberal, anti-imperialist humanitarian impulses can sometimes create empires of misery, and how elitist conservatism can sometimes create social improvements and upward mobility for the masses. Mr. Gladstone, meet Mr. Carter.

Green's discussion of the origins of modern Islamism in the odd stew of Western and Eastern ideas bubbling in the dying Ottoman hinterlands is alone worth the price of admission to this book. Without demonizing nor idealizing the iconic figures of Muhammed Ahmad, Chinese Gordon, Winston Churchhill, or Herbert Kitchener, we get a better understanding of the Mahdist revolt and a glimpse of how yesterday's news headlines drive those of today. A note to George Clooney and other well-heeled would-be humanitarians who hope to stop genocide in Darfur- READ THIS BOOK!

In summary, this is excellent book on a little-known subject that the reader will find very entertaining and enlightening, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. I look forward to more works by Mr. Green.

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HISTORY WITHOUT GLOSS
Crime and justice in Victorian England
Survival of the Fittest
IT ELOQUENTLY PORTAYS ATMOSPHERE AND INTENCE EMMOTION.

The Victorian Underworld
Donald Thomas
Manufacturer: NYU Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0814782388
Release Date: 1998-09-01

Book Description

William Makepeace Thackeray once wrote that the wonders of the Victorian underworld "have been lying by your door and mine ever since we had a door of our own." Donald Thomas here pushes open that door to reveal a world at once both strange and strangely familiar, inviting casual voyeur and serious historian alike to cross its threshold.

Applying his talent for colorful biography to chronicle an entire age, Thomas shows us an underworld through the eyes of its inhabitants. Defined by night houses and cigar divans, populated by street people like the running-patterer with his news of murder, and entertainers like the Fire King, the underworld was an insular yet diffuse community, united by its deep hatred of the police. In its gin shops and taverns, thrived thieves and beggars, cheats, forgers, and pickpockets, preying on rich and poor alike.

Career criminals often showed a craftsmanship that would put their descendants to shame. It took true professionals to remove the modern equivalent of twenty million dollars from the Bank of England. In one case, conspirators even recruited officers from Scotland Yard.

Those who failed in such enterprises found themselves in the convict hulks, where the annual mortality rate might reach 40 percent, or in the new prisons, their faces masked and identified only by numbers. Rich in anecdote and vividly recounted, The Victorian Underworld brings the past alive like few recent works of history.

Customer Reviews:

HISTORY WITHOUT GLOSS.......2002-01-27

When historians create their tomes they glorify and even fabricate information in order to make their nation appear as prolific as possible. "Victorian Underworld" is a view of this era of Britain's history that is rarely, if ever, exhibited. It is an overview of the conditions of the underclass, of which, in all contemporary nations are the largest portion of the population. "Victorian England" concentrates on the manner in which the bulk of the population, the 'commoners' either lived their lives or the obstacles the public endeavoured to avoid. The writing style is as enticing as grand fiction which brings an air of titillation to this factual documentation of history.

Crime and justice in Victorian England.......1999-12-02

Readers of British social history might enjoy this work. The first half ("Crime") draws very heavily--perhaps too heavily--from the works of 19th-century writer Henry Mahew. (Oddly, the Amazon listing shows Mahew as co-author, but he is not listed as co-author in the book itself.) We're treated to a detailed description of slum living conditions, criminal scams of the era, cheating on horse races, early pornography, and prostitution. A variety of detailed narratives give the book a personal touch; it's not dry reading. The most astonishing tidbit in this book is that in Victorian London, there was a ratio of one prostitute for every ten adult males!

The second half of the book ("Retribution") covers the jails of the era, police corruption, hangings of wrongly convicted people, and the workings of the court system, spiced with a variety of narratives about actual people. On the other hand, the most irritating feature of the book is that the index lists only names of persons, not topics.

Survival of the Fittest.......1999-02-22

What a relief to sit comfortably ensconsed in a different century! The author points out the cruelty of everyday life under the reign of Queen Victoria and the futility of the struggle to survive. It should be a lesson to all of us nowadays when we complain about the tough life we have to endure.We have come a long way! While the narration certainly is very interesting, it also seems curiously flat and without a lively soul. Maybe that stems from the fact that much of the book has a few sources only and just seems to copy them. Also, the back and forth of the time frame makes it somewhat incoherent. It would have helped a great deal to include a few maps of London.

IT ELOQUENTLY PORTAYS ATMOSPHERE AND INTENCE EMMOTION........1998-10-03

AS AN AVID VICTORIAN FAN I FOUND MYSELF HYPNOTIZED BY THE SWIRL OF HISTORICAL DRAMA.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume E: The Victorian Age

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The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume E: The Victorian Age

Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Hard Times (Norton Critical Editions)

ASIN: 0393927210

Book Description

Read by millions of students over seven editions, The Norton Anthology of English Literature remains the most trusted undergraduate survey of English literature available and one of the most successful college texts ever published. Firmly grounded by the hallmark strengths of all Norton Anthologies—thorough and helpful introductory matter, judicious annotation, complete texts wherever possible—The Norton Anthology of English Literature has been revitalized in this Eighth Edition through the collaboration between six new editors and six seasoned ones. Under the direction of Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor, the editors have reconsidered all aspects of the anthology to make it an even better teaching tool.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2B: The Victorian Age

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The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2B: The Victorian Age

Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
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Binding: Paperback

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Hard Times (Norton Critical Editions)

ASIN: 039397569X

Book Description

With adoptions at over 1,300 colleges and universities in its first semester; the Seventh Edition of The Norton Anthology of English Literature continues to be the indispensable anthology. Like its predecessors, the Seventh Edition offers the best in English literature from the classic to the contemporary in a readable, teachable format. More selections by women and twentieth-century writers, a richer offering of contextual writings and apparatus fully revised to reflect today's scholarship make the Seventh Edition the choice for breadth, depth, and quality.

For the first time ever, the acclaimed Norton Anthology of English Literature is available in six separate volumes, each of which cover a specific period of English lit and focus on the wide range of writers and literature, with full annotation and commentary. Adapted unabridged from the full Norton Anthology, this volume is ideal for focused study or specific coursework in the period.

Victorian People and Ideas: A Companion for the Modern Reader of Victorian Literature
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Superb reading!

Top of the line!

Intelligent and Literature-Centered

A lively and thorough introduction to the Victorian period

Victorian People and Ideas: A Companion for the Modern Reader of Victorian Literature
Richard D. Altick
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 039309376X

Customer Reviews:

Superb reading!.......2007-04-10

I am pleasantly surprised at what a marvelous read this book is! Altick provides a very thorough background on Victorian history, people, philosophy, economics, politics, religion, literature etc. which is not only highly informative but also fascinating. After carrying this book everywhere for a week and delighting at even having the opportunity to read two pages at a time, I found myself returning to Amazon.com to look for other books by the same author.

Altick not only knows the Victorian experience (and its development and changes throughout the 19th century), but he knows how to present it in a manner which is highly illuminating. Another plus is how, perhaps without meaning to, he provides a backdrop for socio-political-economic developments of the 20th century, which not only affected Great Britain, but spread across the Atlantic to the U.S. As a result, I am not only becoming much more knowledgeable about Victorian times and able to understand the context of the Victorian novels I have been reading, but I have become more aware of the philosophies, value systems and practices which have shaped western society today. This is one of the best nonfiction books I have ever read.

Top of the line!.......2005-08-02

I can not tell you how splendid this work is, I just am flabergasted! Some books are written and then some books are "written"! This book was "written"! Hands down I have to tell you this was a book that was "written" !
I am a professional critic so I have a few gripes. One the binding bent to easily when I threw the book against the wall. OK, so I have a problem with big words, the book uses big words when little words would suffice. Call me crazy but do not call me if you plan to read this p...I am told I will love the book and given time (and some time on the rack) I suppose I would, but at this point I will have to reserve judgement until I read the dang thang. Please do not hold your breath....Best book I have ever...Go read now!

Intelligent and Literature-Centered.......2001-12-09

I cannot imagine a better "companion" to Victorian literature than this nicely organized book. This is an invaluable guide to anyone who would like to situate their knowledge of Victorian prose and poetry within the era's social/historical zeitgeist. Malthus, dissenters, social reforms, sexuality, class consciousness -- all here. I have found myself returning to this book many times over the years. Kudos to Altick.

A lively and thorough introduction to the Victorian period.......2000-10-10

I highly recommned this introduction to the values and literature of Victorian Britain. Replete with lively anecdotes and thoughtful analyses, Altick's work makes for an entertaining read even as it educates those just beginning to tackle nineteenth century British history and literature.

Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England

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Exploring the middle class home and psyche
Thank God I'm Mod!
The Home as Castle
Fascinating view of the life of the past
Great Reading!

Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England
Judith Flanders
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0393052095

Book Description

"Almost criminal in its housebreaking, burglarizing, second-story genius."—James Kincaid, University of Southern California

The Victorian age is much closer to us in time than we might believe. Yet at that time, in the most technologically advanced nation in the world, people buried meat in fresh earth to prevent mold forming and wrung sheets out in boiling water with their bare hands. Such household drudgery was routinely performed by the grandparents of people still living, but the knowledge of it has passed as if it had never been.

Judith Flanders's book is laid out like a Victorian house, taking you through the story of daily life from room to room. In each space she depicts the home's furnishings and decoration: from childbirth in the master bedroom, through the scullery and kitchen, the separate male and female domains of the drawing room and the parlor, and ending in the sickroom. A rich selection from diaries, letters, advice books, magazines, and paintings fills the rooms with the people and personalities of the age. 100 illustrations, 3 8-page color inserts.

Customer Reviews:

Exploring the middle class home and psyche.......2007-08-28

I've always been interested in the Victorian period of English history, especially in the ways that people lived. Most books that detail the daily lives of people are geared towards the upper classes, with their grand estates in the country, and imposing townhouses. The working classes have been summed up with conditions of appalling poverty, overcrowding and misery. But what about the middle classes, those professional workers and merchants that were suddenly new consumers and riding the crest of the Industrial Revolution?

Researcher Judith Flanders takes a look at their world, and particularly through the eyes of the women who were often the silent, but determined decision makers in how their homes were run and organized. How she presents this information is the interesting part -- she describes this world and the people in it through the rooms of a typical middle-class home. It is also a look at the lives of the Victorians as they progress from room to room, from birth and the nursery, to death and the sickroom. It is also predominately the world of women, where the father of the household is a somewhat distant presence, there to provide the financial means, and perhaps a dominating effect, but also rather remote from the day to day workings of the family.

Where this book becomes the real draw is when Flanders describes each room in turn, drawing on the journals, homekeeping books and manuals, and the memoirs of the time. A good deal of the book is given not just to how each room was decorated and furnished, but also how it was kept clean, and how it was used, and if it was a room meant to be for private -- such as the nursery, bedrooms, and the workplaces such as the kitchen and scullery.

Public or rather, reception rooms were the Drawing Room, the Dining Room, and the Parlor. Often the Dining room and parlor would be one and the same in many homes, with the Drawing room having the best furniture and items, and saved for when visitors came and the best impressions to be made. The dining room was often where the lady of the house stayed during the day, where she did her letter-writing and account keeping, and often would teach her children, and oversee her servants.

Workplaces in the home were the Kitchen and Scullery, where meals were prepared, and clothing and dishes washed. Often this was where the servants slept if there wasn't any spare room for them. It was also where the greatest battle against bugs, rats and mice were often fought -- one description in the narrative depicts three visiting housemaids clutching each other in terror in the night atop the kitchen table as the floor 'heaved' with cockroaches. Other duties included the laundry, a laborious, backbreaking chore that took a week to complete, only to be started again almost immediately. More than any other chapters, these made me bless those inventors who have come up with such staples as modern ranges, the refrigerator, and especially the washer and dryer.

Another innovation in the Victorian home was the bathroom. And we're not just talking about bathtubs either -- in the homes of the upper middle classes, and the aristocracy, there were enough servants to haul tins of hot water up and down stairs to fill a hip bath for washing, but for more basic needs there was the odorous chamberpot, a device that had to be emptied, and scoured clean several times a day. No wonder when nonporous pipe was invented, the creation of indoor plumbing and the flush toilet were embraced so happily, especially when typhoid and cholera epidemics swept through England.

Bedrooms were for sleeping, but they could also reflect the inhabitant's likes, and often served as a retreat from busier parts of the house. The study was the man of the house's own retreat from the feminine, usually done up in dark, masculine colours. And then there was the nursery, where the youngest members of the family usually grew up in, until they had a bedroom of their own -- shared with other siblings of the same sex, or they were packed off to formal schooling.

All in all, I found this to be a remarkable book, full of information about the last half of the nineteenth century. Flanders' writing style is full of wit, and some pretty canny observations. We're not so far from our Victorian ancestors either -- a great deal of our own attitudes still linger. Keeping up with the Jones's isn't a new concept at all, and neither is the idea that a clean, beautiful home is equal to moral cleaniness as well. Flanders' insights into modern domestic thought is very revealing and worth the time to read this book.

The text has plenty of illustrations, along with several full-colour inserts. The research is top notch, and the writing style is lively and full of some tongue in cheek humor. Some things are covered that I thought had nothing to do with homes, but actually were, such as the art of the social call, with cards; the etiquette of 'At-Homes;' the elaborate rituals of mourning in behavior and clothing; and even the debate about corsetry and whether to tight-lace or not. It's not a quick book to read, but a very insightful one. There are extensive notes, bibliography and plenty of suggestions as to where to go next if any particular topic interests you.

Anyone who is interested in how the Victorians lived from day to day should try to find this one. It's a well-done book full of details and intimacies of London, and gives some new theories and revelations about that most misunderstood creature, the Victorian woman.

Five stars.

Thank God I'm Mod!.......2007-03-30

To start off with, I have never been very interested in the Victorian period, because it always seemed stultifyingly dull and hyper-religious. I'm not one of those women who coo and ooh about how "romantic!" everything was, and I find the novels insanely unreadable.

So, you're saying, Why did you buy this book? Well, because I couldn't find the book I really wanted, was browsing, pulled it off the shelf, read a page, and thought, "This is actually interesting!"

The book details in a very readable, conversational fashion the way home life was lived: cleaning, cooking, childrearing, servant/employer relations, and host of other things. It gives a fascinating picture of a daily life...that absolutely SUCKED! Anybody who read this book and didn't come away horrified missed the point. Without spoiling the details, let me just say that life back then was seriously worse than now. I can't imagine finishing the book, picking up my copy of *Victoria* magazine, and sighing, "Gosh, for the good old days!" I'd be tearing up my subscription and looking for a new historical period to be interested in.

But that's just me. Anyhow, I'm pretty sure that more than a few Victorian housewives took the Martha Stewart approach, reading the guidebooks more for entertainment than anything, and maybe occasionally trying one of the ideas, but hardly conforming to the ideal in every detail. I also doubt that every family was as rude and condescending to their daughters and servants as the book says. Victorian women certainly had a pathetic position relative to us today, but it's hard to believe life was sheer hell for every single one of them. That's the reason I gave the book three stars. The writing merits four, but I'm not convinced it's a balanced portrait. Even so, I'm not sorry I bought the book, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone.

The Home as Castle.......2006-12-20

A couple years ago someone coined the term, "cocooning" to describe what they saw as the "trend that sees individuals socializing less and retreating into their home more."

But this is hardly a new phenomenon - in fact, it's actually a Victorian ideal, one admirably expounded on in "Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England" by Judith Flanders.

It was during the Victorian era that advances in technology and transportation made it possible (and even desirable) for people to work someplace other than the home. We take it for granted now, but 150 years ago you had to live where you worked. Think about it: the farmer (obviously) lived on his farm; the shopkeeper above his store. If you were in the lower classes, work often consisted of piecework, assembled in the home. With the rise of an increasingly affluent middle-class, it was now possible to remove your family from the dirt, crowds and crime of the city to the more bucolic environs of the country or suburbs. And we've been doing it ever since.

As I said, we take this for granted today - but in the Victorian era it was a new concept and became something of a mania for all but the poorest in the population. The separation of the public life from private living was described by Dickens:

"The office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle [his house in the suburbs] behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me... "

And on page 8:

"Oh, how dull and dreary is the best society I fall into compared with the circle of my own Fire Side with my Love sitting opposite irradiating all around her, and my most extraordinary boy!"

For how many of us is home and family a bulwark against all the pressures of work and the outside world? It's an incredible blessing and not everyone is lucky enough to have it.

I've noticed that a few other reviewers have commented on what they perceive to be a feminist bias in the author's work. I'm a pretty conservative guy (read my other reviews) and I never felt like Judith Flanders was doing anything except giving as honest a portrayal of Victorian life as was possible. The book is heavily footnoted and well documented. Many of the more troubling comments (the breastfeeding child as vampire, for example) are not the author's opinion, but the opinion of the Victorians themselves. I found it amusing in places to see how our twenty-first century prejudices color how we can look back at beliefs and practices that were no more remarkable in their time than referring to a woman as Ms is in ours. As I've counseled in other reviews, don't read any deeper than the text on the page, gentle reader. You'll enjoy the book a lot more if you don't waste your time trying to divine some political or social meaning beyond the written words.

"Inside the Victorian Home" is a fascinating look at the daily lives of middle-class Victorians and I highly recommend it.

Fascinating view of the life of the past.......2006-08-26

I do hope that potential readers will read the publisher's comments, professional reviews, and positive reviews because they give a much more accurate account of the contents of the book than the rather nasty reviews by some readers. (Having read the book, it seems to me the reviewers have more of an ax to grind than does the author.) As an avid reader of Victorian novels over more than 50 years I found information on every page that threw light on the lost customs of the Victorians (the amazing system of visiting cards; the social complexities of meals and mealtimes; the astonishingly hard work involved in maintaining the home; the amazingly complex rituals involved in mourning; the problem of food adulteration). Every topic covered is illuminated. Plus, this book is a delight to read from first word to last. I recommend it without reservation to any reader of Dickens, Trollope, Eliot, and Arnold Bennett.

Great Reading!.......2006-08-21

One of the best books I have read on Victorian England.
Well written, percise, and extrememly interesting.
This is a book you can read and read again!

The Victorians and the Visual Imagination

Average customer rating:

The Victorians and the Visual Imagination - Kate Flint.

The Victorians and the Visual Imagination
Kate Flint
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0521770262

Book Description

This innovative, interdisciplinary study explores the Victorians' attitudes toward sight. It draws on writers as diverse as George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Rudyard Kipling as well as pre-Raphaelite and realist painters including Millais, Burne-Jones, William Powell Frith and Whistler, and a host of Victorian scientists, cultural commentators and art critics. Topics discussed include blindness, memory, hallucination, dust, and the importance of the horizon--a dazzling array of subjects linked together by the operations of the eye and brain. This richly illustrated book will appeal to anyone studying Victorian culture.

Customer Reviews:

The Victorians and the Visual Imagination - Kate Flint........2001-01-03

A welcome study ! Offering interesting reading for academics and those who have a general passion for the period. This book is well referenced and sourced - pulling together the thoughts and experiences of many key and contemporary Victorians such as Ruskin, Dickens, Eliot and a whole host of lesser known but equally important writers and artists. Kate Flint explores the changing concept of perspective - she shows the impact of travel - the challenge to conventional perspective offered by physically altering one's position - train travel or ballooning for example. "Sight" as it was perceived by the Victorians is something we do not identify with today. Flint brings to the foreground the important fact that "seeing" in Victorian England was indeed a very different experience. I found this book a useful addition to my bookshelf and more than that, I really liked it.

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