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At home with books: resuscitating the history of 18th-century reading and readers at the Geffrye Museum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2016

Hannah Fleming
Hannah Fleming*
Affiliation:
Geffrye Museum of the Home, Kingsland Road, London, E2 8EA, United Kingdom
*
Email: hfleming@geffrye-museum.org.uk
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Abstract

Diaries, letters, commonplace books, marginal notes, visual and inventory evidence all speak to the possession of books by the middling sort in the 18th century and the presence of books in their homes. But how can this knowledge be translated into acquisitions for the museum and how should the stories of these books be told? How do museum displays and interpretation move beyond the fact of possession to uncover and represent the histories of readers, their engagement with texts, and the variety of historical reading habits?

Type
Research Article
Information
Art Libraries Journal , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , 2014 , pp. 5 - 9
Copyright
Copyright © The Art Libraries Society 2014

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References

1. The National Archives, PROB 11/475, quoted in Hunting, Penelope, Riot and revolution: Sir Robert Geffery 1613-1704 (London: Geffrye Museum, 2013), 175.Google Scholar
2. See John, Eleanor, ‘At home with the London middling sort – the inventory evidence for furnishings and room use, 1570-1720’, Regional Furniture XXII (2008), 27–51.Google Scholar
3. A bible has since been acquired – a copy of the 1616 authorised version, a small folio. It has been re-backed, a concession that was inevitable, and is bound in probably contemporary black morocco with gilt decoration and will shortly be put on display in the 1630 room.Google Scholar
4. Weatherill, Lorna, Consumer behaviour and material culture in Britain, 1660-1760 (London: Roudedge, 1996), 49.Google Scholar
5. The National Archives, Inventory of John Mitford, Bow, C113/11.Google Scholar
6. Colclough, Stephen, Consuming texts: readers and reading communities, 1695-1870 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), ix.Google Scholar
7. The Gentleman’s Magazine, July 1736, 23.Google Scholar
8. Essex Record Office, Settlement on marriage of Thomas Rawstorn and Sophia Lisle, D/DPa/1.Google Scholar
9. Essex Record Office, Probate copy of will of Thomas Rawstorn, D/DPa 37.Google Scholar
10. Essex Record Office, Description of courtship and marriage of Sophia Lisle and Thomas Rawstorn of Lexden, T/G 143/1.Google Scholar
11. Vickery, Amanda, The gentleman’s daughter: women’s lives in Georgian England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), 45–56.Google Scholar