Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England

Behind Closed Doors is a study of Georgian interiors, the importance and purpose of home, emerging commercialism and desire for home goods, the domestic spheres in which men and women moved, and the social hierarchy and expectations in the home. It is also an analysis of Georgian home decorating, which includes such things as the popularization of wallpaper, the development of “taste,” and the simultaneous celebration and marginalization of women’s handicrafts.

What I found most enjoyable in Vickery’s book wasn’t the academic analysis of wallpaper or the analysis of male/female roles, but the case studies of the lives of individuals, as revealed through their letters and journals.

My favorite was the depressive spinster, Gertrude Savile, whose luckless love life was further compounded by having no money of her own. With no income, she was completely reliant on her brother, a rich baronet, and she keenly felt the humiliation of having to beg him for “every gown, sute of ribbins, pair of gloves, every pin and needle” (188). Her cheerless journal entries give vivid insight into her personal melodrama. Speaking of her brother’s house she says, “I was mightily estrang’d to it. It used to have a more friendly home air, but now I thought myself a stranger . . . I fancy’s the very walls look’d inhospitably upon me and that everything frown’d upon me for being an Intruder” (189). Bitter and feeling unwelcome, Gertrude would confine herself to her room, where handcrafts and her cat were her only pleasure. Luckily, for Gertrude, she was eventually liberated from this arrangement by a legacy, which allowed her to move into her own lodgings and experience the independence she always longed for.

There are dozens more stories of personal intrigue and tragedy, including that of the dissipated bachelor, George Hilton, whose diaries reveal an addiction to drinking, gambling, and whores. Filled with remorse, Hilton would resolve “to have soe punctuall a guard over my inclynacions as never to lose my reason my imooderate drinking” (71) and that “never will I knowe a woman carnaly except in a lawfull state.” (71). Of course, he broke these resolutions quite speedily, which he candidly recorded in his journal.

These stories are what made Vickery’s book come alive for me.

While Vickery writes with a liveliness and wit that may surprise you, considering much of her source documents were account books and ledgers, there was some unavoidable monotony, often coming in the form of the repetition of lists found in her research These are quick to skim over though and the majority of this book was filled with fascinating facts and pithy observations.

One of the benefits of reading this book is that there is an accompanying 3-disc series, At Home with the Georgians, which is narrated by Vickery and wonderfully entertaining. If the book sounds like a bit of an academic stretch for your reading tastes, just watching this series will give you the highlights of the book without any of the cumbersome academic discourse. ;)