Daily Life in a Victorian House

by Laura Wilson

Takes a look at the customs, lifestyles, entertainments, food, clothing, and the essential role of servants in keeping everything running smoothly in a wealthy Victorian household

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Victorian, British Literature, Childrens

48 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1993

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[MaryannC Victorian Dreamer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meant as a children's book but still fascinating, especially seeing the everyday gadgets of the era, the clothes, the food, and the routines of family and servant life in the Victorian home.

[The Bookworm Girl Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this engaging book! It was fascinating and I loved the visual elements 🙌🏻

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this years ago in an antique shop and enjoy reading it from time-to-time since I'm a sucker for Victoriana. In spite of being a slim book, there's a lot of information, photos, and drawings that are useful for a collector. It was sold as a child's "Upstairs, Downstairs."

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The edition I have was bought at a museum in England and is published by The National Trust. It is well illustrated but also gives a good look into the lives of a family, The Smiths, living in London in Victorian times. It tells about the working of the house house upstairs and downstairs. If you like social history especially that of the Victorians, this is the book for you.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being a children's book, this was a quick but interesting read with lots of illustrations. Downton Abbey fans would probably like it. I learned that I definitely would not want to have lived in that era. Everyone (rich to poor) had to live with coal heat that caused soot to settle everywhere in the home. Miners had the dangerous, backbreaking job of getting it. If one were well to do and female she had a boring life unless she chose to break from the norm which would take determination and courage. The rich had to change clothes to be seen in three times a day. Clothing was so confining and cumbersome that one needed a servant for help. All kinds of meaningless rituals had to be learned and carried out for the sake of show. Servants worked 12 hours a day having little time for themselves. Most had tedious, repetitious work. If time travel ever exists, I will be sure to never go back to this era.

[Kayla Tornello · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offered a great overview of daily life in Victorian London. I read a lot of history books, so I was familiar with a lot of the information covered in this book, but I really enjoyed seeing pictures of lots of the items I had read about. I also liked that the book formatted all the information around one family. It made it much easier to picture the household that way. This was quite an interesting book.

[Madeleine McLaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I'm researching for my Victorian novel, I found this to be a great book for the little details of household goods. A range and other objects that the Victorians used. Pictures are so good for letting the reader know exactly what a thing looked like and how it was used.

[Tory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of Victorian life with excellent photos. Though I was familiar with most of the information, the photos were really interesting.