Comforts of Home in Western Europe, 1700-1900

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.

• List of IllustrationsList of TablesNotes on ContributorsIntroduction: Comfort, the Home and Home Comforts, Jon Stobart (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)Part I - The Convenient House: Architectural Ideals and Practicalities1. Convenience, Utility and Comfort in British Domestic Architecture of the Long 18th Century, Dale Townshend (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)People in Focus. Masters and Servants: Parallel Worlds in Blondel's Maisons de Plaisance, Aurélien Davrius (ENSA Paris-Malaquais, France)2. Northern Comfort and Discomfort: Spaces and Objects in Swedish Country Houses, c.1740-1800, Johanna Ilmakunnas (University of Turku, Finland)Object in Focus. Marketing the Necessary Comforts in Georgian Dublin, Conor Lucey (University College Dublin, Ireland)3. The Invention of Thermal Comfort in 18th-Century France, Olivier Jandot (Université d’Artois, France)Object in Focus. The Improved Tiled Stove: Sweden's Contribution to Defining Comfort? Cristina Prytz (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)People in Focus. Keeping Warm with Sir John Soane, Diego Bocchini (Independent Scholar, Italy)4. The Spread of Comfort in 19th-Century Belgian Homes, Britt Denis (Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium)Part II - Home Making: Objects and Emotions5. Home Making: Comfort in Victorian Middle-Class Homes in Britain and Beyond, Jane Hamlett (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK)Object in Focus. The Ideal Home in 1732: the Uppark Dolls' House as a Study in Comfort, Patricia Ferguson (British Museum, UK)Object in Focus. Comfort Compromised? The 'Bachelor Box' in Finland at the Turn of the 20th Century, Laika Nevalainen (European University Institute, Italy)6. Feeling at Home Abroad: Comfort, Domesticity, and Social Display on the Netherlandish Grand Tour (1585 - 1815), Gerrit Verhoeven (Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium)People in Focus. Moving House: Comfort Disrupted in the Domestic and Emotional Lives of an 18th-Century Bachelor, Helen Metcalfe (University of Manchester, UK)7. Home from Home?: Making Life Comfortable in Victorian Barracks, Rowena Willard-Wright (English Heritage, UK)Object in Focus. A Wallpaper Sandwich: Comfort in the Student Room in 19th-Century Cambridge, Serena Dyer (Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture, UK)8. Making a Home: Family, Memory and Domestic Space in England c.1750-1830, Jon Stobart (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)Object in Focus. The Comfort of Animal 'Things' in Late-Victorian Britain, Julie-Marie Strange (University of Manchester, UK)Afterthoughts: The Comforts of Home, Jon Stobart (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)BibliographyIndex

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.