The Victorian Parlour
A Cultural Study

The parlour was the centre of the Victorian home and, as Thad Logan shows, the place where contemporary conflicts about domesticity and gender relations were frequently played out. In The Victorian Parlour: A Cultural Study, Logan uses an interdisciplinary approach that combines the perspectives of art history, social history and literary theory to describe and analyse the parlour as a cultural artefact. She offers a detailed investigation of specific objects in the parlour, and argues that these things articulated social meaning and could present symbolic resolutions to disturbances in the social field. The book concludes with a discussion of how representations of the parlour in literature and art reveal the pleasures and anxieties associated with Victorian domestic life.

Reviews & endorsements

'… a refreshing change from standard histories of design … a richly detailed account … Historians who are grappling with the evidentiary problems that material culture poses will find The Victorian Parlour a stimulating example. Her critique of Veblen's theory of social emulation is excellent, her comments about Susan Stewart's On Longing are insightful … a number of tantalizing observations … The Victorian Parlour makes for fascinating reading …' Historical Journal

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Product details

• Date Published: November 2006
• format: Paperback
• isbn: 9780521028158
• length: 304 pages

• dimensions: 228 x 152 x 18 mm
• weight: 0.464kg
• contains: 41 b/w illus.
• availability: Available