Book 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
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. 'Flanders writes with absorbing
detail and elegant analysis.' Sunday Times
'Judith Flanders's wonderfully entertaining book…a vigorously written,
fact-filled cornucopia…it has nuggets of interest on every page.' Sunday Telegraph
'Her account of how the Victorian age democratised pleasure and
ordinary convenience should become a classic.' Independent on Sunday
'Flanders's book is suitably fat and fact-packed…this is a generous
survey of a world that is both far stranger and far more familiar than
the one we think we know.' Daily Telegraph
'Flanders is deft at making connections.' Observer
'“Consuming Passions” tells the story of Victorian leisure and pleasure
as an interrelated and intricate set of transformations…a fascinating,
bewildering, marvel-crammed quest.' Guardian
'It is a world explored with much wit and insight…Flanders is
excellent…It's a rich mix [and]…fluently written…It has every chance of
becoming a bestseller.' Sunday Telegraph
'…her book, which is about the ways our forebears enjoyed themselves,
is itself pure pleasure from beginning to end… [Flanders] is
encyclopaedic in her range…This book is packed with goodies as a rich
Victorian Dundee cake. Seldom has painstaking academic research been put
to better use to produce a work which is pure joy. Every page crammed
with interest.' Daily Mail
'A richly detailed work that translates a wealth of research with a
light and readable touch.' Guardian
'Formidable…[an] excellent study…a major achievement.' Observer
'Full of fascinating nuggets, this book puts our modern obsession with
buying stuff firmly into context. Reverting and revealing.' Time Out
Judith Flanders is the author of critically acclaimed 'A Circle of
Sisters' (2001) - a biography of Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones,
Agnes Poynder and Louisa Baldwin - which was nominated for the Guardian
First Book Award, and the bestselling 'The Victorian House - Domestic
Life from Childbirth to Deathbed' (2003). She is a frequent contributor
to the 'Daily Telegraph', the 'Guardian', the 'Evening Standard', and
the 'Times Literary Supplement'. She lives in London.
