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From Amazon
Judith Flanders takes a novel approach to rediscovering the lives of our 19th century forebears in her The Victorian House. She pays them a visit. Perhaps mindful of the success of the Channel 4 series, The 1900 House and The 1940s House, Flanders steps back a few decades earlier to embark on a room-by-room guide to a typical mid-Victorian family home. We start in the bedroom and work our way downstairs through the principal parts of a middle-class home. Particular attention is paid to the operations side of the household--the bathroom, the kitchen and the scullery--where the Victorian preoccupation with cleanliness and food is well-described. Flanders is also good at drawing out the decorative functions of the Victorian home, bringing out the separate male and female domains of the drawing room and the parlour.
A wealth of detail--from advice books such as Mrs Beeton's cookbooks, novels, contemporary magazines and autobiographies--is crammed into each room. This is more than an inventory of interior design. Flanders uses the house as a base from which Victorian attitudes towards servants, marriage, illness, death and religion can be explored. There remains a small quibble: this book should really be titled "The Middle-class House of Victorian London". We are not taken to any provincial homes. And a question mark remains over how representative Flanders' rather grand Victorian house is, heaving as it does with servants, hot water and ornate furnishings. As she herself notes, few Victorian families could afford more than one servant at the very most, many married couples still lived with their older relatives and hardly anyone owned their own home. --Miles Taylor --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
'Judith Flanders is the Mary Poppins of academic toil. "Spit spot", she says, and suddenly you have!amusing information!the delight of this book is the intelligence and freshness of its inferences.' Lynne Truss, Sunday Times 'A God-among-loo-books!here, the past is not so much a foreign country as another planet!there is not a single piece of trivia here that I don't feel better for knowing.' Time Out 'An enthralling, entertaining and thought-provoking revelation of the realities of life in the tall, thin, Victorian town house.' Evening Standard 'This book is a splendidly entertaining read, and it also breaks new ground. No one has ever written so interestingly or wittily about housework.' Spectator 'Rich and well ordered, this study casts brilliant light!Curious facts tumble from the pages.' Economist '[Flanders] explores [Victorian's] minds through the fascinating minutiae of their lives and through that detail we glimpse the bigger history. Turn off the TV and read this instead.' The Sunday Business Post 'This rich book is a shining example of how history might be made entertaining and engrossing, as well as informative. Flanders has crammed and incredible amount of detailed research into this book which will become an invaluable reference for other historians.' The Glasgow Herald 'The delight of this book! is the intelligence and freshness of its inferences.' The Sunday Times 'Judith Flanders' artful arrangement of fascinating facts brings new life to people (mostly female) and places (all domestic) that traditional history ignored.' Literary Review
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Most helpful customer reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Astoundingly Engaging,
By David Wineberg "David Wineberg" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Victorian House C (Hardcover)
Although the fifty page intro was a bit sluggish, it fortunately did not represent the rest of the book. Flanders devotes a chapter to each room in the stereotypical Victorian house, plus one for The Street. Her research gives new meaning to the word "depth". She has mined non fiction, letters, fiction,and just about anything that could possibly add insight to life in that very rigid time. The result is a wealth of analysis, as well as wonderful trivia (People did not want newfangled toilets in their bathrooms because bathrooms were clean!). From the weight of women's clothing (37 pounds), to the ways households detected adulteration in their food, and the number of mail deliveries per day (10-12), The Victorian House is a treasure trove of information. The three sections of colour plates add visual evidence to Flanders' text, and the whole thing is remarkably focused trip through this world.I have no reservations about recommending this book.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.8 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews) 22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful survey of daily life in 1800s Britain,
By saskatoonguy - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Victorian House C (Hardcover)
This is a wonderful survey of British social history in the 1800s - how people actually lived their lives day to day. Drawing from every possible historical source, the author describes what life was like for well-to-do Brits in the Victorian era, with a particular emphasis on London. Her theme is to take the reader through an upper-crust house room by room: One chapter on the kitchen, one on the scullery, one on the parlour, and so on. I found it utterly fascinating.Victorian England is not exactly ancient history, yet it is amazing how different life was then, and how unpleasant (by our standards) life was even for the wealthy. For instance, people tolerated incredible filth. Even among the well-to-do, coal dust coated every interior surface, clothing was heavy and dirty, and baths were infrequent. London fogs were so thick that pedestrians would bump into things. Food was extremely bland even for the elite, and it was thought that feeding vegetables to children would stir up sexual interest. Most surprising of all, women rarely questioned their inferior status. It was generally accepted that women were mentally and physically weak, and women themselves seemed to accept this with little questioning. The amount of change during the last century, in both material and non-material ways, is mind-boggling. Incidentally, this book appears to be identical to "Inside the Victorian Home" by the same author. 11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Astoundingly Engaging,
By David Wineberg "David Wineberg" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Victorian House C (Hardcover)
Although the fifty page intro was a bit sluggish, it fortunately did not represent the rest of the book. Flanders devotes a chapter to each room in the stereotypical Victorian house, plus one for The Street. Her research gives new meaning to the word "depth". She has mined non fiction, letters, fiction,and just about anything that could possibly add insight to life in that very rigid time. The result is a wealth of analysis, as well as wonderful trivia (People did not want newfangled toilets in their bathrooms because bathrooms were clean!). From the weight of women's clothing (37 pounds), to the ways households detected adulteration in their food, and the number of mail deliveries per day (10-12), The Victorian House is a treasure trove of information. The three sections of colour plates add visual evidence to Flanders' text, and the whole thing is remarkably focused trip through this world.I have no reservations about recommending this book. 5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mrs. Beeton Would Be Proud of Judith Flanders,
By Lori A. Pattillo "BookWorm" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Victorian House (Paperback)
Like a well-run Victorian home, Judith Flanders has carefully placed each aspect of Victorian life in it's "proper place" with this thoroughly engaging book. Dedicating an entire chapter to each room of the 19th century Victorian English home(Nursery, Scullery, Kitchen,Bathroom, Parlour, Sickroom and so on), Flanders uses each room as a case-study of Victorian English life, from birth to death (and everything in-between). Flander's book draws you in to the era completely with an unromanticized glimpse into the life of average Victorians-not just the wealthy-and through a copious use of contemporary material(e.g. letters, newspapers, advertisements, diaries andliterature). All of this lends an authenticity that at times proves disarming...The details of laundry-day and the immense work involved in basic housekeeping and meal preparation are utterly amazing! After finishing "The Victorian House", I stood in awe of my household appliances and remembered the adage, "The Good Old Days...Are Now".
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