Consuming Passions
by Judith Flanders 
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Description
A delightful and fascinating social history of Victorians at leisure, told through the letters, diaries, journals and novels of nineteenth-century men and women, from the author of the bestselling 'The Victorian House'. Imagine a world where only one in five people owns a book, where just one in ten has a knife or a fork - a world where five people out of every six do not own a cup to hold a hot drink. That was what England was like in the early eighteenth century. Yet by the close of the show more nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution had brought with it not just factories, railways, mines and machines but also fashion, travel, leisure and pleasure. Leisure became an industry - a cornucopia of excitement for the masses - and it was spread by newspapers, advertising, promotions and publicity - all of which were eighteenth-century creations. It was Josiah Wedgwood and his colleagues who invented money-back guarantees, free delivery and celebrity endorsements. New technology such as the railways brought audiences to ever-more-elaborate extravaganzas, whether it was theatrical spectaculars with breathtaking pyrotechnics and hundreds of extras - 'hippodramas' recreating the battle of Waterloo - or the Great Exhibition itself, proudly displaying 'the products of all quarters of the globe' under twenty-two acres of the sparkling 'Crystal Palace'. In 'Consuming Passions', the bestselling author of 'The Victorian House' explores this dramatic revolution in science, technology and industry - and how a world of thrilling sensation, lavish spectacle and unimaginable theatricality was born. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
BookCrossing 31 Jul 2010 (bought from Connected charity shop for BC purposes)
A look at Victorian leisure and pleasure, the themed chapters (shopping, reading, theatre, sports...) stretched in fact from the 18th to the early 20th century, and fascinating they were too. Each chapter could have been a book in its own right and was meticulously researched, referenced and footnoted, and I learnt a lot. Excellent illustrations, both within the text and on the plates, and superb cross-referencing. This long book was actually quite a quick read, and I recommend it to any lovers of social history. Why was the copy-editing only good until p. 101, though?
A look at Victorian leisure and pleasure, the themed chapters (shopping, reading, theatre, sports...) stretched in fact from the 18th to the early 20th century, and fascinating they were too. Each chapter could have been a book in its own right and was meticulously researched, referenced and footnoted, and I learnt a lot. Excellent illustrations, both within the text and on the plates, and superb cross-referencing. This long book was actually quite a quick read, and I recommend it to any lovers of social history. Why was the copy-editing only good until p. 101, though?
Are you a dedicated shopper? Have you ever wondered how this marvellous pastime developed? This then is the book for you. Its brilliant, packed with detail about the rise and rise of consumerism, shops, department stores, and so on. It begins with a dazzling description of the Great Exhibition in London and how so much of what we recognise today as essential leisure pastimes developed from that event.
Apart from the impressive level of research, the text is written in an easy, conversational style which makes you want to read just one more page, then maybe one more. Don't miss it!
Apart from the impressive level of research, the text is written in an easy, conversational style which makes you want to read just one more page, then maybe one more. Don't miss it!
The focus in Consuming Passions is on the growth of consumerism, with the author, Judith Flanders, often delving into the eighteenth-century background to demonstrate her thesis — the democratisation of the marketplace, not just for goods, but for all sorts of leisure pursuits.
Tons of interesting facts & well researched, and I normally love this kind of thing but I think the writer should have been an accountant. It was incredibly boring and badly written for the most part.
Tons of interesting facts & well researched, and I normally love this kind of thing but I think the writer should have been an accountant. It was incredibly boring and badly written for the most part.
Altogether too dense, too much information
Interesting fact from Chapter 5: "By 1849, the year after W.H.Smith began trading, his Paddington station stall routinely stocked 1,000 books; travellers paid 1d. to read them in the shop while they waited for their trains, or for a slightly higher fee they could take the books with them on the train 'returning' them to the W.H. Smith bookstall at their destinations".
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Author Information
15+ Works 5,570 Members
Judith Flanders is a social historian. Her works include the best-selling The Invention of Murder, and Inside the Victorian Home. She is senior research fellow at the University of Buckingham.
Judith Flanders is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing.
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2006
Classifications
- Genres
- History, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 941.081 — History & geography History of Europe British Isles Historical periods of British Isles 1837- Period of Victoria and House of Windsor Victoria 1837-1901
- LCC
- GV75 — Geography, Anthropology and Recreation Recreation. Leisure Recreation. Leisure
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 213
- Popularity
- 153,462
- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (3.68)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 6
