In this brilliant work Amanda Vickery unlocks the homes of Georgian England to examine the lives of the people who dwelt there. Writing with her customary wit & verve she introduces us to men & women from all walks of life: gentlewoman Anne Dormer in her stately Oxfordshire mansion; bachelor clerk & future novelist Anthony Trollope in his dreary London lodgings; genteel spinsters keeping up appearances in two rooms with yellow wallpaper; servants with only a locking box to call their own. Vickery makes ingenious use of upholsterers ledgers burglary trials & other unusual sources to reveal the roles of house & home in economic survival social success & political representation during the long 18th century. Through the spread of formal visiting the proliferation of affordable ornamental furnishings the commercial celebration of feminine artistry at home & the currency of the language of taste even modest homes turned into arenas of social campaign & exhibition.