Keeping The Victorian House

First published in 1995. The essays in this volume demonstrate how Victorian women took up various positions along a continuum that ranged from the desire of Shelley’s creature for the power and acceptance it associated with the house to the rejection of Brontë’s heroine of the immobility and powerlessness she ultimately experienced there. More specifically the essays in this volume explore the nature of the Victorian woman’s domestic relations by centring in one activity that most informed her place in what was often the father’s house: housekeeping. The essays in this edition determine how writers, especially novelists, both male and female, used housekeeping to construct, reconstruct, represent, and inscribe the female self and condition. This title will be of interest to students of history and literature.

A middle class home, circa 1850, of the sort that many people live in today, is the focus of Judith Flanders' book. 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.

This guide combines historical information with design ideas and advice on how to decorate, renovate and maintain a vintage home.

Presents photographs and sketches and explanations of life in a particular London house during the 19th century and includes a list of houses and museums which offer displays on aspects of Victorian life.

An illustrated guidebook to restoring American Victorian houses. In this guide, Joan Brierton takes readers on a tour of five Victorian homes of different styles, and guides them through the historical, architectural and decorating issues that are found in all Victorian dwellings.

For lovers of the "Painted Ladies" series, and magazines such as "Victorian Home", this is an eye-opening look at Victorian life and design--a blend of social history and decorating inspiration illustrated with photographs of museum-quality restored Victorian homes across North America. 100 color photos.

A pictorial examination of Victorian architecture found throughout North America.