Name: Small Things in the Eighteenth Century By Chloe Wigston Smith (University of York)
SKU: 9781108834452
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Small Things in the Eighteenth Century Summary

Small Things in the Eighteenth Century: The Political and Personal Value of the Miniature by Chloe Wigston Smith (University of York)

Offering an intimate history of how small things were used, handled, and worn, this collection shows how objects such as mugs and handkerchiefs were entangled with quotidian practices and rituals of bodily care. Small things, from tiny books to ceramic trinkets and toothpick cases, could delightand entertain,generating tactile pleasuresfor users while at the same time signalling the limits of the body's adeptnessor the hand's dexterity. Simultaneously, the volume explores the striking mobility of small things: how fans, coins, rings, and pottery could, for instance, carry political, philosophical, and cultural concepts into circumscribed spaces. From thedecorativeand playfulto theuseful and performative, such small things as tea caddies, wampum beads, and drawings of ants negotiated larger political, cultural, and scientific shifts as they transported aesthetic and cultural practices across borders, via nationalist imagery, gift exchange, and the movement of global goods.

Small Things in the Eighteenth Century Reviews

Placing the minuscule under the magnifying glass, Small Things in the Eighteenth Century is an astonishingly diverse but uniformly fascinating collection of essays. From teapots, coins, and trinkets to insects, books, and beads, small things can be easy to ignore or forget. And yet in this volume small things are shown to spark big ideas, to move unnoticed through space and time, to traverse seemingly impermeable social and political boundaries. This book is a key intervention in the field and will demand the attention of literary scholars, art and design historians, curators, and anybody interested in gaining a richer sense of everyday life during the eighteenth century. Joseph Hone, Newcastle University
Small Things in the Eighteenth Century makes an important contribution to cultural history by focusing its readers on the myriad little details that comprised the period's material world. Gewgaws and luxuries as small as a wampum bead, ant, or punctuation mark, as common as a button or as rare as a medal, as complete as a miniature portrait or as fragmented as a glass shardminute items that could be seen, held, treasured, lost, and traded become a means of measuring crucial developments at home and around the globe. The interdisciplinary expertise of the contributors provides a lively diversity of perspectives on the practical and symbolic meanings of each small thing. Melinda Rabb, Brown University

About Chloe Wigston Smith (University of York)

Chloe Wigston Smith is the author of Women, Work, and Clothes in the Eighteenth-Century Novel (2013) and co-editor, with Serena Dyer, of Material Literacy in Eighteenth-Century Britain: A Nation of Makers (2020). Her current research, supported by a British Academy fellowship, centers on material culture and the Atlantic world. Beth Fowkes Tobin, a recipient of NEH and NSF fellowships, is the author of The Duchess's Shells: Natural History Collecting in the Age of Cook's Voyages (2014), Colonizing Nature: The Tropics in British Arts and Letters, 17601830 (2005), and Picturing Imperial Power: Colonial Subjects in Eighteenth-Century British Painting (1999).

Introduction: The Scale and Sense of Small Things Chloe Wigston Smith and Beth Fowkes Tobin; Part I. Reading Small Things: 1. The sum of All in All: The miniature book and the nature of legibility Abigail Williams; 2. Nuts, flies, thimbles, and thumbs: Eighteenth-century children's literature and scale Katherine Wakely-Mulroney; 3. Gothic syntax Cynthia Wall; 4. Small, familiar things on trial and on stage Chloe Wigston Smith; Part II. Small Things in Time and Space: 5. On the smallness of numismatic objects Crystal B. Lake; 6. Crinoidal limestone and Staffordshire teapots: Material and temporal scales in eighteenth-century Britain Kate Smith; 7. Joineriana: The small fragments and parts of eighteenth-century assemblages Freya Gowrley; 8. Pray what a pox are those damned strings of Wampum?: British understandings of Wampum in the eighteenth century Robbie Richardson; Part III. Small Things at Hand: 9. We bought a guillotine neatly done in bone: Illicit industries on board British prison hulks, 17751815 Anna McKay; 10. What number?: Reform, authority, and identity in late-eighteenth-century military buttons Matthew Keagle; 11. Two men's leather letter cases: Mercantile pride and hierarchies of display Pauline Rushton; 12. The aesthetic of smallness: Chelsea porcelain seal trinkets and Britain's global gaze, 17501775 Patricia F. Ferguson; 13. Small gifts foster friendship: Hortense de Beauharnais, amateur art, and the politics of exchange in post-revolutionary France Marina Kliger; Part IV. Small Things on the Move: 14. Hooke's ant Tita Chico; 15. Portable patriotism: Britannia and material nationhood in miniature Serena Dyer; 16. Revolutionary histories in small things: Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette on printed ceramics, c. 17931796 Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth; 17. A box of tea and the British Empire Romita Ray; 18. Afterword: A thing's perspective Hanneke Grootenboer.

Additional information

Sku

NPB9781108834452

ISBN 13

9781108834452

ISBN 10

1108834450

Title

Small Things in the Eighteenth Century: The Political and Personal Value of the Miniature by Chloe Wigston Smith (University of York)

Author

Chloe Wigston Smith (University of York)

Condition

New

Binding type

Hardback

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Year published

2022-09-29

Number of pages

280

Prizes

N/A

Cover note

Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.

Note

This is a new book - be the first to read this copy. With untouched pages and a perfect binding, your brand new copy is ready to be opened for the first time

Small Things in the Eighteenth Century Chloe Wigston Smith (University of York)

Small Things in the Eighteenth Century by Chloe Wigston Smith (University of York)

Summary

Small Things in the Eighteenth Century Summary

Small Things in the Eighteenth Century: The Political and Personal Value of the Miniature by Chloe Wigston Smith (University of York)

Small Things in the Eighteenth Century Reviews

About Chloe Wigston Smith (University of York)

Table of Contents

Additional information

Customer Reviews - Small Things in the Eighteenth Century