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The Victorian House: Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed Paperback – January 1, 2004

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 354 ratings

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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.
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial; New Ed edition (January 1, 2004)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 528 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0007131895
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0007131891
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.08 x 1.34 x 7.76 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 354 ratings

About the author

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Judith Flanders
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Judith Flanders was born in London, England, in 1959. She moved to Montreal, Canada, when she was two, and spent her childhood there, apart from a year in Israel in 1972, where she signally failed to master Hebrew.

After university, Judith returned to London and began working as an editor for various publishing houses. After this 17-year misstep, she began to write and in 2001 her first book, A Circle of Sisters, the biography of four Victorian sisters, was published to great acclaim, and nominated for the Guardian First Book Award. In 2004, Inside the Victorian Home received widespread praise, and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards History Book of the Year. In 2006, Consuming Passions was published. Her book, The Invention of Murder, was shortlisted for the 2011 CWA Non-Fiction Dagger. Her most recent book The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London was published in 2012.

Judith also contributes articles, features and reviews for a number of newspapers and magazines. Her home on he web can be found at http://www.judithflanders.co.uk/usa

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
354 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book informative and interesting. They appreciate the detailed explanations of everyday life in the past and the amazing homes. The book is described as readable, concise, and a quick read.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

7 customers mention "Information quality"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the book informative and interesting. They appreciate the details and explanations of everyday life in the past. The research is praised as marvelous.

"...Always interesting things to discover in her books and this one is no different. Want to know how long to boil macaroni? It's in there...." Read more

"Love this book. So many details of everyday life of people that era." Read more

"Very informative, and paints the picture for you, as if you're there. It was a very quick read for me, as I get drawn into anything historical." Read more

"...am always curious about life in the past and this book is quite good at explaining all the things that they had in homes back in Victorian times...." Read more

4 customers mention "Readability"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and recommend it. They appreciate the details of everyday life and homes in that era.

"Love this book. So many details of everyday life of people that era." Read more

"...use, ornamentation and social significance of these special and amazing homes. It's super and I recommend it highly." Read more

"Excellent read on what life was really like in the Victorian times...." Read more

"Wonderful..." Read more

3 customers mention "Readable"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the book readable and concise. They appreciate the research done by the author.

"...It's concise and the research she does is marvelous. Always interesting things to discover in her books and this one is no different...." Read more

"...It was a very quick read for me, as I get drawn into anything historical." Read more

"I love history and this book was full of accurate details. Very readable though...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2020
    I absolutely look forward to reading anything Judith Flanders writes. It's concise and the research she does is marvelous. Always interesting things to discover in her books and this one is no different. Want to know how long to boil macaroni? It's in there. Need to learn about "sick" Victorian ladies? They're in here too. Need to fumigate the bedroom? Ditto. Wonderful fun stuff.
    5 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2022
    Love this book. So many details of everyday life of people that era.
  • Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2016
    Very informative, and paints the picture for you, as if you're there. It was a very quick read for me, as I get drawn into anything historical.
    4 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2014
    I am always curious about life in the past and this book is quite good at explaining all the things that they had in homes back in Victorian times. There are some diagrams and also pictures actually taken at that time. Tells some about family sizes, the people hired to work in the homes, problems with soot from fires, how often some parts of the kitchen were cleaned, etc. Quite interesting. I would have liked even more diagrams and pictures. Glad I got it.
    6 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2020
    I bought this book so that I could better understand the design, use, ornamentation and social significance of these special and amazing homes. It's super and I recommend it highly.
    3 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2013
    I love history and this book was full of accurate details. Very readable though. If I could afford it I buy a few dozen copies to have on hand to send to the writers of historical fiction who obviously know very little about the period that they set their stories in.
    5 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2015
    Our just married daughter and her husband just bought a charming house in London that was built in the 1860's and looks exactly like the illustration on the cover. I gave it to them as a house-warming present and they are greatly enjoying using the footsteps of their house to imagine its former life.
    2 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2024
    Same as Life in a Victorian Home. Just retitled. Fooled me into wasting my
    moneyy.
    One person found this helpful
    Report

Top reviews from other countries

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  • Francois
    5.0 out of 5 stars Bonne documentation
    Reviewed in France on December 20, 2024
    Je n'ai pas pu le finir néanmoins il rempli très bien son rôle. J'avais besoin pour un projet personnel de documentation sur la vie de tout les jours et non la grande histoire. Et ce livre rempli très bien son aspect documentaire.
  • D. Sulser
    5.0 out of 5 stars Vieles über die Ausstattung eines victorianischen Hauses
    Reviewed in Germany on May 14, 2024
    Ausführlich, informativ und locker geschrieben.
  • Seila Roldan
    5.0 out of 5 stars Just great
    Reviewed in Spain on October 14, 2023
    A must-read
  • Andrea S.
    5.0 out of 5 stars BEST book ever on life in a Victorian house!
    Reviewed in Canada on September 20, 2015
    Very informative book, the VERY BEST book written on the Victorian home...details provided not only give the reader a thorough understanding of the role each room of a house played during the Victorian era, but the way in which it's written is very fun to read as well. Judith Flanders is a great writer; I have seen her in many BBC documentaries too...I recall she was giving a tour of Thomas Carlyle's house...
  • T. K. Elliott
    5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended for anyone who is interested in the domestic life of the period (other than experts).
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 14, 2016
    This book was excellent.

    This is not a book for people who are already knowledgeable on the topic of domestic daily life during the Victorian age in England. Flanders does, however, manage to combine an informative overview with a considerable degree of entertainment value - especially if you read the footnotes, where most of the humour is.

    This is a particularly useful book for anyone hoping to write about the period, since Flanders does not get bogged down in detail, but she does manage to get the 'feel' of the period very well indeed. One thing that particularly struck me is the sheer filthiness of the cities (particularly London, as the largest city) - Flanders does not just say "it was filthy" but demonstrates by discussing little adjustments people had to make, like not putting out a white tablecloth until a short time before the meal, or it would go grey. This level of atmospheric pollution is something that we just don't have to deal with in the UK any more, so it's hard to imagine without the examples Flanders gives.

    Another interesting area is the illustration of how limited many middle-class women's lives were - again, something that we find it difficult to appreciate from our twenty-first century standpoint. We might intellectually know that the Victorian period was probably the one in English history where women's rights and status in society reached their lowest ebb, but Flanders provides illustrative facts, including that since women were supposed to spend their lives catering to their families (particularly the men), pretty much the only way for a woman to get some time to herself was to be ill - which provided a cast-iron excuse for retiring to one's bedroom and closing the door. It provides an interesting alternative viewpoint on the fragile Victorian lady - women's health was generally poorer than men's because of their poorer diet and lack of fresh air and exercise, but being a professional invalid definitely had its attractions for any woman who wanted to escape the endless round of service to others.

    This is a book I shall probably refer to again and again.