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33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful, readable history, December 21, 2009
This review is from: Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England (Hardcover)
I am a great fan of Amanda Vickery's books. And I think that they should be required reading for anyone interested in the social history of the Georgian era.
Her previous work, "The Gentleman's Daughter" was a wonderfully detailed exploration of the intimate lives of women in the 18th century and helped many of us to a greater understanding of Jane Austen's female character's lives, setting them in a recognisable historical context .Her new book "Behind Closed Doors : at home in Georgian England" once again takes the domestic realm as it subject but details it on a much wider scale.
She does not concentrate on one class of people but considers, in minute detail, the intimate lives of landladies and lodgers, tradesmen and women, professionals and aristocrats living in both London and in the provinces.
Its scale is breathtaking and the detail, delicious. And what I really adore is that she admits the historical truth of Jane Austen's writings by including copious quotes from the six novels to illustrate her points. Indeed, she devotes almost half a chapter of the book to consider the way in which the subject of the home is treated by Austen's heroines and heroes, even going so far as to paraphrase the famous opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Georgian house with a drawing room, French windows and lawns must be in want of a mistress..."
It was an irresistible and understandable opportunity ....I daresay had I been given the chance to play with that famous line, I would not have let it pass either...
While reading Professor Vickery's descriptions of the lives and experiences of real individuals the Jane Austen devotee will find many parallels with the situations in which her characters find themselves.
The book is beautifully produced , printed on fine glossy paper and illustrated in black and white and colour with very appropriate and carefully chosen illustrations.
I confess I have devoured this book and read it quickly almost at one sittting.I am going to revisit it over the next few weeks savouring its detail. I highly recommend this book to you: anyone who is keen on Jane Austen's works will enjoy delving into the minutiae of real people's lives - especially as many of the lives have telling details which echo in Austen's works.
Is it too much to hope that this book will soon appear in a Kindle edition?
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fascinating examination of life in Georgian England, December 29, 2009
This review is from: Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England (Hardcover)
An Englishman's home, as the saying goes, may be his castle, but three hundred years ago it was becoming so much more. In the 18th century, the English home served as a place in which its inhabitants sought to define themselves through the use of décor. As more people socialized in their homes, their living spaces became venues in which their identity could be displayed for others to see for themselves. The emergence and development of this trend is the subject of Amanda Vickery's book, which analyzes the lives of the men and women of Georgian England by examining the homes in which they lived.
In studying Georgian homes, Vickery uses a number of different perspectives. Among her goals is the reintroduction of men into the picture, which she does most notably in her chapter on the homes of bachelors. Yet as she demonstrates, the furnishing and decoration of homes was predominantly a female concern, albeit one often handled in consultation with the men of the household. Such decisions were often mundane, and focused more on simple maintenance rather than grand refurbishment, but all of them reflected the interests of the participants and were shaped by the concept of "taste" that emerged during this period, which charted a path that increasing numbers were compelled to take.
Detailed, insightful, and well-written, Vickery's book offers a fascinating examination of life in Georgian England. Because of the limitations of her sources, it is by necessity an examination focused primarily on the upper classes, yet she succeeds in taking account books, ledgers, and other mundane sources to reconstruct their lives, showing the growing importance of home life and the weight contemporaries placed on defining their domestic environment. Her success in unearthing these details and bringing the Georgian world back to life makes this book a necessary read for anyone interested in 18th century England, one that will likely serve as an indispensable study of the subject for decades to come.
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20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"Behind" Not "Inside", July 8, 2010
This review is from: Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England (Hardcover)
OK, it's probably my fault; I thought this book was something it is not. But, gee, when an author uses the words `behind,' `closed,' and `doors' in series, it seems reasonable for the prospective reader to assume that they will learn what went on, well, behind closed doors in the designated period. Perhaps I was spoiled, and inadvertently misled, by Judith Flanders' superb "Inside the Victorian Home" whose title implied we would be told what went on, you know, inside the Victorian home. And we certainly were. Ms. Flanders figuratively takes the reader by the hand and serves as an expert guide as they move together through the typical Victorian home and learn not only about the layout, function and furnishing of each room but, more importantly, about what went on in them, how people actually lived therein. Ms. Vickery's book, on the other hand, is the story of folks who lived in the Georgian period, the things they owned, and the, uh, relationship between those people and those things. Oh, she describes the general layout of various kinds of abodes, and uses case histories to describe the lives and fortunes of many coevals. But the story of how they actually lived in those habitats was apparently beyond her brief. But there's a whole lot of information about wallpaper and sewing methods and materials, and that sort of thing. Indeed, one might fairly characterize the work as a Georgian `Better Homes & Gardens.' Just don't call it social history because it certainly is not. For that aspect of the period, I refer you to Roy Porter's wonderful "English Society in the Eighteenth Century." Because for me at least, this book's title 'doors' were never opened.
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