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Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England
- ISBN13: 9780393052091
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product 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.
Published in: Victorian Articles and QA
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This author uses her book about Victorian England to spout her anti-family, feminist, liberal views. This is not a book detailing about how houses were made and what comprised the furniture, linens, draperies, and routines of daily life.
This is a book wherein the author digs up the most depressing details of Vicrtorian culture, and adds to it her own feminist twist, that makes fun of women’s beautiful role as homemaker and caretaker, portrays men and fathers as totalitarian evildoers, nursing mothers as burdened, crying slaves that feel their nursing babes are akin to vampires (her own words!), and generally inserts her sick and twisted twenty first century feminist viewpoint everywhere she can.
This is a very expensive book and a huge disappointment. Don’t give her your money!
Rating: 1 / 5
This book is an excellent collection of truthiness – gathered from advice books, novels and diaries. The author acknowledges here and there that these may hardly reflect reality of the actual life during the Victorian era, but most of the time she just assumes it does. It’s quite entertaining, but sometimes the author’s feminist interpretation of the facts goes overboard. It’s also tiring how she always looks down her nose on anything the “Victorians” did, thought or stood for, on any of their achievements and even any progress they made. She makes them all look stupid and backward.
Rating: 3 / 5
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.
Rating: 3 / 5
The book came in perfect condition and it is a great resource for anyone interested in Victorian life or in Victorian literature.
Rating: 4 / 5
I am always on the lookout for information to help in restoring my Victorian Home. This book was helpful.
Rating: 5 / 5