The Victorian House : Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed

History

Flanders, Judith

Europe

HARPER/COLLINS

The bestselling social history of Victorian domestic life, told through the letters, diaries, journals and novels of 19th-century men and women. The Victorian age is both recent and unimaginably distant. In the most prosperous and technologically advanced nation in the world, people carried slops up and down stairs; buried meat in fresh earth to prevent mould forming; wrung sheets out in boiling water with their bare hands. This drudgery was routinely performed by the parents of people still living, but the knowledge of it has passed as if it had never been. Running water, stoves, flush lavatories -- even lavatory paper -- arrived slowly throughout the century, and most were luxuries available only to the prosperous. Judith Flanders, author of the widely acclaimed 'A Circle of Sisters', has written an incisive and irresistible portrait of Victorian domestic life. The book itself is laid out like a house, following the story of daily life from room to room: from childbirth in the master bedroom, through the scullery, kitchen and dining room -- cleaning, dining, entertaining -- on upwards, ending in the sickroom and death. Through a collage of diaries, letters, advice books, magazines and paintings, Flanders shows how social history is built up out of tiny domestic details. Through these we can understand the desires, motivations and thoughts of the age. Many people today live in Victorian terraces, and so the houses themselves are familiar, but the lives are not. 'The Victorian House' will change all that.

The Victorian House: Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Harperperennial

Consuming Passions

Harper Press

A delightful and fascinating social history of Victorians at leisure, told through the letters, diaries, journals and novels of nineteenth-century men and women, from the author of the bestselling ‘The Victorian House’.Imagine a world where only one in five people owns a book, where just one in ten has a knife or a fork – a world where five people out of every six do not own a cup to hold a hot drink. That was what England was like in the early eighteenth century. Yet by the close of the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution had brought with it not just factories, railways, mines and machines but also fashion, travel, leisure and pleasure.Leisure became an industry – a cornucopia of excitement for the masses – and it was spread by newspapers, advertising, promotions and publicity – all of which were eighteenth-century creations. It was Josiah Wedgwood and his colleagues who invented money-back guarantees, free delivery and celebrity endorsements. New technology such as the railways brought audiences to ever-more-elaborate extravaganzas, whether it was theatrical spectaculars with breathtaking pyrotechnics and hundreds of extras – ‘hippodramas' recreating the battle of Waterloo – or the Great Exhibition itself, proudly displaying 'the products of all quarters of the globe' under twenty-two acres of the sparkling 'Crystal Palace'.In ‘Consuming Passions’, the bestselling author of ‘The Victorian House’ explores this dramatic revolution in science, technology and industry – and how a world of thrilling sensation, lavish spectacle and unimaginable theatricality was born.

The Macdonald sisters -- Alice, Georgiana, Agnes and Louisa -- started life among the ranks of the lower-middle classes, with little prospect of social advancement. But as wives and mothers they made a single family of the poet Rudyard Kipling, the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones, Edward Poynter, President of the Royal Academy, and the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin. In telling their remarkable story, Judith Flanders displays the fluidity of Victorian society, and explores the life of the family in the 19th century.

A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynter and Louisa Baldwin

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Penguin??Books

"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. 100 illustrations, 3 8-page color inserts

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

W.W.Norton&Company

Traces the lives and influences of the four MacDonald sisters of nineteenth-century Britain, citing their origins in the poorly educated lower-middle class, their identities as the wives or mothers of famous artists and leaders, and the social changes that enabled their achievements. 10,000 first printing.

A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne Jones, Agnes Poynter, and Louisa Baldwin

World

W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

"[Flanders] knows what we want to know and is thoroughly engaging, undidactic company."--Katherine A. Powers, Boston Sunday Globe Nineteenth-century Britain was then the world's most prosperous nation, yet Victorians would bury meat in earth and wring sheets out in boiling water with their bare hands. Such drudgery was routine for the parents of people still living, but the knowledge of it has passed as if it had never been. Following the daily life of a middle-class Victorian house from room to room; from childbirth in the master bedroom through the kitchen, scullery, dining room, and parlor, all the way to the sickroom; Judith Flanders draws on diaries, advice books, and other sources to resurrect an age so close in time yet so alien to our own. 100 illustrations, 32 pages of color.

“Judith Flanders has driven a four horse chariot through the nineteenth century. In telling the story of the four Macdonald sisters she has brilliantly illuminated the world of Victorian England. I have enjoyed this book more than I can say.” ―John Julius Norwich The Macdonalds were both of their own time and yet our contemporaries. In the personal and social journeys they made they were creatures of an exceptional moment in history, a social drama set in a privileged time and place, while in the ordinary dynamics of their relationships with each other they were us. The dynamism of family life mirrored the times. From the birth of Alice soon after Queen Victoria came to the throne, to their dispersal at the end of a long Edwardian summer, the Macdonalds were a prime example of the fluidity and social mobility that characterized the age.

A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynter, and Louisa Baldwin

Community & Culture

Previously published as Writers' Block. You know when you have one of those days at the office? You spill coffee on your keyboard, the finance director goes on an expenses rampage and then, before you know it, your favourite author is murdered. Don't you just hate when that happens? Introducing the much-anticipated debut novel by Judith Flanders, acclaimed author of the non-fiction bestsellers A Circle of Sisters and The Victorian House. Drawing on her past experience as editor at prestigious publishing houses, this pitch-perfect crime caper offers a witty, intelligent and entertaining glimpse into the publishing world. When Samantha Clair decides to publish journalist Kit Lovell's tell-all book on the death of fashion-designer Rodrigo Aleman, she can scarcely imagine the dangers ahead. Cue a rollercoaster ride into the dark realms of fashion, money-laundering and murder, armed with nothing but her e-reader and her trusty stock of sarcasm -

A Murder of Magpies (Sam Clair)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Allison Busby

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Flanders, Judith. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Flanders, Judith

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Flanders, Judith. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Victorian House : Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed

The Victorian House: Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed

Consuming Passions

Consuming Passions

A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynter and Louisa Baldwin

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

A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne Jones, Agnes Poynter, and Louisa Baldwin

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

A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynter, and Louisa Baldwin

A Murder of Magpies (Sam Clair)