Small things in the eighteenth century : the political and personal value of the miniature

Format:

Book

Language:

English

Imprint:

Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2022 and ©2022

Subject:

Miniature objects - Social aspects
Material culture - Social aspects

Contributor:

Smith, Chloe Wigston, editor
Tobin, Beth Fowkes, editor

ISBN:

9781108834452 and 1108834450

Description:

xv, 328 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 25 cm

Bibliographic Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Contents:

The scale and sense of small things / Chloe Wigston Smith and Beth Fowkes Tobin -- Reading small things. "The sum of all in all" : the miniature book and the nature of legibility / Abigail Williams ; Nuts, flies, thimbles, and thumbs : eighteenth-century children's literature and scale / Katherine Wakely-Mulroney ; Gothic syntax / Cynthia Wall ; Small, familiar things on trial and on stage / Chloe Wigston Smith -- Small things in time and space. On the smallness of numismatic objects / Crystal B. Lake ; Crinoidal limestone and Staffordshire teapots : material and temporal scales in eighteenth-century Britain / Kate Smith ; "Joineriana" : the small fragments and parts of eighteenth-century assemblages / Freya Gowrley ; "Pray what a pox are those damned strings of wampum?" : British understandings of wampum in the eighteenth century / Robbie Richardson -- Small things at hand. "We bought a guillotine neatly done in bone" : illicit industries on board British prison hulks, 1775-1815 / Anna McKay ; "What number?" : reform, authority, and identity in late eighteenth-century military buttons / Matthew Keagle ; Two men's leather letter cases : mercantile pride and hierarchies of display / Pauline Rushton ; The aesthetic of smallness : Chelsea porcelain seal trinkets and Britain's global gaze, 1750-1775 / Patricia F. Ferguson ; Small things on the move. Hooke's ant / Tita Chico ; Portable patriotism : Britannia and material nationhood in miniature / Serena Dyer ; Revolutionary histories in small things : Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette on printed ceramics, c. 1793-1796 / Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth ; A box of tea and the British empire / Romita Ray

Summary:

"Look around you. You may be seated at a desk or in a comfortable reading chair. No matter your position, there is bound to be something small in view or at hand. A paperclip. A reminder on a scrap of paper. The watch on your wrist. A pencil. A rubber band. A stray thread, a coin, or wisp of lint sheltered in your pocket. A piece of Lego underfoot, a USB key, or smartphone. This preliminary list of the small things that linger and lurk in our surroundings will inevitably remain incomplete and so we invite you to note the small things within your grasp and within sight. Now as in the eighteenth century, small things were here, there, and everywhere, from the pins that fell between wooden floorboards to the clumps of sugar spooned into tea. Small things were displayed on dressing tables and in curio cabinets, tucked in pockets, nestled in palms, and talked about. It's our contention in this collection that small things are all too frequently overlooked but that they were ubiquitous features of eighteenth-century life, significant enough to the authors, artisans, merchants, settlers, printers, and thieves who made them, sought them out, and debated their meanings"-- Provided by publisher

Collection:

BGC Monograph Stacks

Call Number:

NK8470 .S63 2022

Available

c.1