Country houses were grand statements of power and status, but they were also places where people lived. This book traces the changes in layout, the new technologies, and the innovations in furniture that made them more convenient and comfortable. It argues that these material changes were just one aspect of comfort in the country house: feeling comfortable was just as important as being comfortable. Achieving this involved the comfort and solace to be found in daily routines, religious fai...

Consumption is well established as a key theme in the study of the eighteenth century. Spaces of Consumption brings a new dimension to this subject by looking at it spatially.Taking English towns as its scene, this inspiring study focuses on moments of consumption – selecting and purchasing goods, attending plays, promenading – and explores the ways in which these were related together through the spaces of the town: the shop, the theatre and the street. Using this fresh f...

Consumers in eighteenth-century England were firmly embedded in an expanding world of goods, one that incorporated a range of novel foods (tobacco, chocolate, coffee, and tea) and new supplies of more established commodities, including sugar, spices, and dried fruits. Much has been written about the attraction of these goods, which went from being novelties or expensive luxuries in the mid-seventeenth century to central elements of the British diet a century or so later. They have been lin...

This study explores the consumption practices of the landed aristocracy of Georgian England. Focussing on three families and drawing on detailed analysis of account books, receipted bills, household inventories, diaries and correspondence, Consumption and the Country House charts the spending patterns of this elite group during the so-called consumer revolution of the eighteenth century. Generally examined through the lens of middling families, homes and motivations, this book exp...

Property is central to any historical analyses of production, reproduction and consumption. It lies at the heart of discussions of material culture, class relations and the household economy. Recent work has begun to look beyond the acquisition and possession of goods to examine what the disposal, transmission and giving of property might tell us about changing society and culture. This landmark collection of articles represents a wide range of approaches to and perspectives on the ownersh...

An innovative approach in the field of material culture and consumption studies, Life in the Georgian Parsonage looks at the houses, consumption and lifestyle of Church of England clergy in the long 18th century, linking moral debates and popular representations of the clergy to the material culture of their houses and their motivations as consumers.By focusing on ethical and moral dimensions of consumer practices, it challenges established readings of con...

Travel and the British country house explores the ways in which travel by owners, visitors and material objects shaped country houses during the long eighteenth century. It provides a richer and more nuanced understanding of this relationship, and how it varied according to the identity of the traveller and the geography of their journeys. The essays explore how travel on the Grand Tour, and further afield, formed an inspiration to build or remodel houses and gardens; the importan...

Comfort, both physical and affective, is a key aspect in our conceptualization of the home as a place of emotional attachment, yet its study remains under-developed in the context of the European house. In this volume, Jon Stobart has assembled an international cast of contributors to discuss the ways in which architectural and spatial innovations coupled with the emotional assemblage of objects to create comfortable homes in early modern Europe.The book features a two-section stru...

Retail history is a rich, cross-disciplinary field that demonstrates the centrality of retailing to many aspects of human experience, from the provisioning of everyday goods to the shaping of urban environments; from earning a living to the construction of identity. Over the last few decades, interest in the history of retail has increased greatly, spanning centuries, extending to all areas of the globe, and drawing on a range of disciplinary perspectives.By offering an up-to-date,...

This book explores the ways in which the lives and routines of a wide range of people across different parts of Europe and the wider world were structured and played out through everyday practices. It focuses on the detail of individual lives and how these were shaped by spaces and places, by movement and material culture – both the buildings they occupied and the objects they used in their everyday lives. Drawing on original research by a range of established and emerging scholars, each c...

This book provides the first comprehensive examination of household auctions as the key mechanism for recirculating household goods through the 18th and early 19th century. Sara Pennell and Jon Stobart contextualise and historicise the importance of used goods to consumer choices, experiences and identities. They tell the stories of the people and things, as well as the broader processes, practices and attitudes that were bound up in the commercial recirculation of used go...

Jon Stobart and Johanna Ilmakunnas bring together a range of scholars from across mainland Europe and the UK to examine luxury and taste in early modern Europe.In the 18th century, debates raged about the economic, social and moral impacts of luxury, whilst taste was viewed as a refining influence and a marker of rank and status. This book takes a fresh, comparative approach to these ideas, drawing together new scholarship to examine three related areas in a wide variety of Europea...