Summary of Amanda Vickery's Behind Closed Doors

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

#1 The dusk spreads from the river. The clatter of shuttering echoes and answers as every house in the Georgian metropolis fortifies itself against the advancing dark. The November gloom hastens lodgers home, and they scurry back with sausages, oysters, and a pennyworth of tea.

#2 The idea of private life is a creation of the early modern period, and England is the birthplace of privacy. Between 1500 and 1800, the family changed from an economic institution that suppressed the individual to an introspective emotional unit built around children.

#3 The issue of privacy still affects the history of space, even in the 21st century. The architecture and equipment of segregation expressed a growing elite longing for privacy.

#4 The chapter opens the London house to consider how internal space was conceptualised, demarcated, and policed, using the records of the Old Bailey, the principal criminal court in London.

© 2022 IRB Media (Ebook): 9781669385295

Release date

Ebook: 13 April 2022