How to Be a Victorian: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Victorian Life

by Ruth Goodman

Overview

A delightful tour through the intimate details of life in Victorian England, told by a historian who has cheerfully endured them all.
Ruth Goodman believes in getting her hands dirty. Drawing on her own adventures living in re-created Victorian conditions, Goodman serves as our bustling and fanciful guide to nineteenth-century life. Proceeding from daybreak to bedtime, this charming, illustrative work celebrates the ordinary lives of the most perennially fascinating era of British history. From waking up to the rapping of a “knocker-upper man” on the window pane to lacing into a corset after a round of calisthenics, from slipping opium to the little ones to finally retiring to the bedroom for the ideal combination of “love, consideration, control and pleasure,” the weird, wonderful, and somewhat gruesome intricacies of Victorian life are vividly rendered here. How to Be a Victorian is an enchanting manual for the insatiably curious.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780871404855
Publisher:	Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	10/06/2014
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Ruth Goodman is the author of How to Be a Victorian. An historian of British social and domestic life, she has presented a number of BBC television series, including Tudor Monastery Farm. She served as a historical advisor on the BBC’s miniseries Wolf Hall. She lives in England.

Table of Contents

Preface 1

1 Getting Up 5

2 Getting Dressed 29

3 A Trip to the Privy 96

4 Personal Grooming 107

5 Morning Exercise 149

6 Breakfast 157

7 The Main Business of the Day 175

8 Back at the House 209

9 The Midday Meal 250

10 The Day's Work Resumes 255

11 Meanwhile, for the Young, There Was School 286

12 A Few Snatched Hours of Leisure 315

13 The Evening Meal 367

14 A Bath before Bed 388

15 Behind the Bedroom Door 405

Epilogue 439

Acknowledgements 441

Index 445

Editorial Reviews

…informative and quite startling…if you want to know how [Victorians] looked, sounded, felt and smelled, there is no better guide than this one…There is enough detail here on the social significance of everything from bread to laundering to hair fixatives to satisfy the most ardent history-obsessive…Goodman's unique selling proposition as a historian is that she walks the walk of her time period, even when that walk involves hard labor in a corset and a hoop skirt. The book is peppered with her wonderful, and often wonderfully dotty, social experiments.

The New York Times Book Review - Judith Newman

★ 07/28/2014
British social historian Goodman reveals what life was like in the Victorian era in a manner most readers have likely never encountered before: by personally subscribing to Victorian mores and way of life. Goodman’s impeccably researched account will raise readers’ eyebrows with her adventures “living history.” Along the way, she replicates an array of activities and behaviors: she creates and wears numerous styles of period clothing, tries out popular calisthenics for women and girls, uses 19th-century hygiene practices, adjusts to the discomfort of the corset, launders clothes laboriously by hand, and does much else. Goodman has meticulously documented the common Victorian man and woman, explaining practicalities, expenses, and rationales for their actions. For example, a popular scientific notion was that closed windows in rooms were unhealthy, so many people kept their windows open, even in freezing temperatures. Goodman’s charming guide richly illustrates what daily life was like for common people undergoing the massive social changes of the time and succeeds in presenting “a more intimate, personal and physical sort of history.” Illus. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

[A] witty account of life during the monarch’s reign… [Goodman’s] interest in historical accuracy leads her to experiment with corsets and home cures. Research for the book led her ‘down harrowing avenues of hunger, disease, overwork, and abuse.’ Among the most upsetting are accounts of small children working harder than most adults do now, sometimes in dangerous and frightening environments, and on empty stomachs. Often a very funny read, the book takes seriously the suffering of these kids and their families.

Kate Tuttle - Boston Globe

Goodman’s research is impeccable, and she attacks the topic with gusto, taking the reader through an average day and presenting the oddities of life without condescension… Although the book lends itself to being read in segments, I read it straight through like a novel, panting to know what would happen next.

Patricia Hagen - Minneapolis Star Tribune

[E]ntertaining… Goodman mixes historical context with technical know-how; in addition to explaining why women wore corsets she tries wearing—and even making—one herself… [T]he book’s accumulation of detail on matters as diverse as purchasing a ticket for the new underground railway, administering an opium-based tonic to a baby, and signaling interest in a homosexual affair makes you feel as if you could pass as a native.

The New Yorker

If the past is a foreign country because they do things differently there, we’re lucky to have such a knowledgeable cicerone as Ruth Goodman…. Goodman’s fascination with the objects of the past doesn’t lead her to fetishize or romanticize them. She is admirably matter-of-fact…. Revelatory.

Alexandra Kimball - Wall Street Journal

A triumph.

Judith Flanders

Exuberant, absorbing.

A. N. Wilson

2014-06-30
Corsets, child labor and a mortal fear of masturbation: a wonderfully detailed romp through the “day-to-day reality of life” for Victorian men and women.Having spent a year on a “Victorian” farm, among other antiquated kinds, and written about it (co-author:Victorian Farm: Rediscovering Forgotten Skills, 2008, etc.), English social historian Goodman proves an amiable companion in sharing the intimate daily routine of the Victorian, including all social classes and ranging over more than 60 years, from Queen Victoria’s early reign to her twilight. Goodman begins the day with the knocker-upper, wandering the streets at all hours with a long cane and lantern to knock on windows and wake up his working-class clients for their factory jobs (since few then could afford clocks and watches). The author then continues through the chilly morning ablutions at the washstand, elaborate dressing rituals, long workday, bland meals and, finally, “a few snatched hours of leisure.” The author dispels many myths about these buttoned-up souls (that they were unclean, prudish or unfun) and shows how many notions of personal hygiene, kitchen science and sexuality were revolutionized during this era—e.g., the insistence on extensive circulation of air in rooms, the preference for breathable fabrics like wool and cotton, the adoption of baths and public bathing, the switch from privy to water closet and the use of contraceptives. Goodman claims to have made condoms from sheep’s guts, which were used before the vulcanization of rubber in 1843. In 1862, officials set standards for schools, including written examinations, imparting a national focus on formal education (even for girls). Throughout, Goodman relates her own experiences immersed in the Victorian world, such as her surprisingly pleasant time wearing a corset.A lively, expert resource for historical minutiae.

Kirkus Reviews

Delightful.

Seattle Times

★ 09/15/2014
Wake up. Place your feet on the cold floor. Next, quickly wash with water before venturing outside to the streets of London. It's a typical Victorian morning and Goodman, historian and presenter of the BBC documentary series Victorian Farm, aims to share it with readers. The author is an insightful escort to the past, having lived the Victorian life as closely as someone in the 21st century possibly can. In this title, Goodman uses personal experience, along with a wealth of delicate research, to take readers through everything involved in an average Victorian day, including brutal factory work, long train rides on uncomfortable seats, and hurried strolls through choking smog. Goodman skillfully creates a portrait of daily Victorian life with accessible, compelling, and deeply sensory prose. Her personal interjections say less about how the Victorians lived and more about how a modern woman would survive in the age of Queen Victoria, but Goodman's having conquered the corset and brushed her teeth with soot adds depth that isn't often seen in similar titles. VERDICT The material is compulsively readable, and a necessary addition to all collections with a focus on Victorian culture.—Erin Entrada Kelly, Media, PA

Library Journal