Leslie Mitchell
Through The Keyhole
Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England
By Amanda Vickery
Yale University Press 382pp £18.99 order from our bookshop
Vicesimus Knox, one of nature’s moralists, had no doubt that in Georgian England, ‘every family is a little community, and who governs it well supports a very noble character, that of the paterfamilias or Patriarch’. It was a cliché of the time that the family was a microcosm of the state. As the monarch dominated a hierarchy of birth and wealth, so the father ruled over dependants, servants and apprentices. Ideally, everyone knew his or her place, and pleasantly exchanged deference for condescension. It was a snug model, but was it really how lives were lived? Drawing on extensive archival material, Amanda Vickery sets out to give an answer.
Venturing into the domesticity to be found behind closed doors is of course an irresistible adventure for feminist historians. The home was the female space par excellence. It was there that most women spent most of their time. At its worst, it could be a kind of cage,
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'There is a difference between a doctor who writes medical treatises and a doctor who writes absurdist fiction. Do we want our heart surgeon to be an anti-realist?'
Joanna Kavenna peruses Iain Bamforth's 'Scattered Limbs: A Medical Dreambook'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/trust-me-philosopher
How did Uwe Johnson, the German writer who was friends with Hannah Arendt and Max Frisch, end up living out his days in the town of Sheerness, Kent?
https://literaryreview.co.uk/estuary-german
You only have a week left to take advantage of our February offer: a six-month subscription for only £19.99.
https://www.mymagazinesub.co.uk/literary-review/promo/literaryfebruary/