Victorians at Home and Abroad (Victoria and Albert Museum Studies)

by PaulAtterbury (Author), SuzanneFagenceCooper (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2001

  $3.29

  The Victorian era, all too often fossilized in history books and novels, was in fact a period of revolutionary social changes. The Victorians inhabited a world of bewildering contrasts where a Gothic vision mingled with exoticism, prim domesticity with the allure of world travel, religious piety with material wealth. Victorians at Home and Abroad is a lively visual chronicle of this remarkable era.This succinct, affordable volume complements the larger exhibition book, The Victorian Vision, offering new insights into the lifestyles, pastimes, and creative pursuits of the first generation of Westerners to fully embrace the modern world. From science and industry to fine art and sports, all the touchstones of the Victorian world view, in both their smallest and grandest forms, come to life in the diverse imagery and informative texts of this attractive volume.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2001

  $3.29

  Published on the centenary of Queen Victoria's death, this illustrated book is an opportunity to revisit the achievements of the Victorian period, putting aside the attitudes and judgements of the 20th century. The Victorians were expansive, ambitious, imaginative and confident. Makers of the modernworld, their extraordinary vision provoked revolutions in art and culture, in society, in science and industry, and in international trade. Their figurehead was Queen Victoria, whose coronation in 1838 heralded the most exciting period in modern history, when Britain emerged as a major imperial power trading nation. Exploring the essential characteristics of the Victorians, this book measures their achievements in all the many facetsof their turbulent society. At the same time, it highlightstheir willingness to face the many debates and divisions that fragmented their culture, and their attempts to come to terms with a new world order. Monarchy, family, Victoria's New Britain and the Gothic vision, sport, ships and trains, domestic life, death and religion, nature and landscape, interior decoration, the impact of world cultures and exoticism are all featured in this colourful snapshot of the Victorian vision of the world.