How to be a Victorian. A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Victorian Life by Ruth Goodman is an informative and entertaining work by a British historian of social and domestic life. It is full of the little details that bring fuzzy impressions of how people actually lived back then into focus.
The book is well-organized to address Victorian life, using as its base the structure of the Victorian day. At each level of society, men, women, and children rose from bed, ate, dressed, worked, studied, and/or played, took care of their physical needs and their bodies, and finally, shut the door to their bedrooms. Goodman flavors the facts she’s gathered with insight from having tried living in Victorian shoes. Sometimes literally.
It is written in a conversational style and is easy to read. However, even though the organization allows it to move at a steady pace, there is no story, no narrative flow. Unfortunately, that means the book is pretty easy to put down and pick up again. So it took far too much time for me to get through it. (Which is only really a problem as far as keeping up my blogging pace.)
For anyone interested in Victorian daily life, this book is a fount of information. I got it from my library but am considering buying it for my shelf.
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