Victorian Home: The Grandeur And Comfort Of The Victorian Era, In Households Past And Present

"Victorian" may mean "fussy" to some, but as this book shows, it's all in the proportions. The rooms shown here are delightfully unfussy, instead warm and inviting--the polished wood gleams, the Persian carpets glow with faded splendor, and the view from the white wicker-furnished veranda goes on for miles. The text explains how the Victorian era fostered several style reforms: the midcentury Gothic and rococo revivals, the aesthetic movement of the 1880s, and Art Nouveau. There's plenty of interesting reading here for a social-history buff, lots of interiors to delivately swoon over (such as the dining room with "Jam tomorrow and jam yesterday but never jam today" stenciled on the walls), and a large section of tips for adding Victorian style to a modern home without compromising its integrity.