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Jennifer Howard

Writer, editor, journalist.

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“Do We Have Victorians to Thank for Consumerism?”

November 27, 2020

Kinda yes, as I argue in this CLUTTER excerpt that ran in LitHub:

“Victorian” has persisted as a convenient if imprecise shorthand for a style that’s heavy in every sense. “Victorian decor” invokes curtains-drawn houses where light goes to die and where rooms are filled with furniture dark, heavy, and overstuffed. Victorian rooms, as we imagine them, were temples (or mausoleums) of things, with every surface— mantels, tabletops, shelves, sideboards—obscured by ceramic figurines and keepsakes, and every inch of wall covered with paintings and portraits.

Read the full essay.

Tagged With: book excerpt, clutter, LitHub

Recent Writing

  • “A paler shade of white”: HAVING AND BEING HAD by Eula Biss (review)
  • “Do We Have Victorians to Thank for Consumerism?”
  • “The Complicated Role of the Modern Public Library”

Recent Posts

  • Book event: VA Festival of the Book “Shelf Life”
  • Interview: “Rising Up With Sonali”
  • Live at East City Bookshop

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About Jen

Jen Howard sitting in front of a brick wall. She is smiling.

Writer, journalist, editor, gadabout. Book- and nature lover. Washingtonian. LLC. Read more »

Latest Posts

  • Book event: VA Festival of the Book “Shelf Life”
  • Interview: “Rising Up With Sonali”
  • Live at East City Bookshop
  • The TLS: “Coming Clean” (review)
  • Vox: Quoted in an article on “The New Maximalism”

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