The Comforts of Home in Western Europe, 1700-1900 - by Jon Stobart (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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 structure focusing on the historiography of architectural and spatial innovations and material culture in the early modern home. It also includes 10 case studies which draw on specific examples, from water closets in Georgian Dublin to wallpapers in 19th-century Cambridge, to illustrate how people made use of and responded to the technological improvements and the emotional assemblage of objects which made the home comfortable. In addition, it explores the role of memory and memorialisation in the domestic space, and the extent to which home comforts could be carried about by travellers or reproduced in places far removed from the home.

The Comforts of Home in Western Europe, 1700-1900 offers a fresh contribution to the study of comfort in the early modern home and will be vital reading for academics and students interested in early modern history, material culture and the history of interior architecture.

Review Quotes

Anyone wishing to understand the meaning of home will welcome the essays in this volume, which have much to say about how inextricably linked our concept of home is with the notion of comfort. By casting light on countries across Western Europe, and looking at the situations of men, women, and even pets, this splendid collection sets a high standard for investigations of domestic space and will appeal to readers across disciplines.
Stephen G. Hague, Instructor of Modern History at Rowan University, USA

These case studies ... often steal the show, as it were, giving fascinating glimpses into topics ranging from the increasing importance of water closets, to lessons about comfort drawn from a doll's house, to the creation of comfort in Finnish bachelor pads. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.
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About the Author

Jon Stobart is Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He is the editor of Travel and the British Country House: Cultures, Critiques and Consumption in the Long Eighteenth Century (2017) and the co-editor of A Taste for Luxury in Early Modern Europe: Display, Acquisition and Boundaries (Bloomsbury, 2017). He is also Founding Editor of the journal History of Retailing and Consumption.