The Age of Comfort When Paris Discovered Casual--and the Modern Home Began

by DeJean, Joan

• ISBN13: 9781608192304
• ISBN10: 160819230X
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-08-31
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA

Summary

This remarkable history of late-seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century France introduces the age when comfort became a new ideal. Home life, formerly characterized by stiff formality, was revolutionized by the simultaneous introduction of the sofa (a radical invitation to recline or converse), the original living rooms, and the very concept of private bedrooms and bathrooms, with far-reaching effects on the way people lived and related to one another. DeJean highlights the revolutionary ideas--and the bold personalities behind them--that fomented change in the home and beyond, providing new insight into the household habits and creature comforts we often take for granted.

Author Biography

Joan DeJean is the author of nine books on French literature, history, and culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She is Trustee Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where she has taught for eighteen years. She divides her time between Philadelphia and Paris.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Age of Comfort	p. 1
A Short History of Modern Comfort	p. 22
An Architecture of Comfort	p. 45
The Bathroom	p. 67
The Flush Toilet	p. 80
Heating	p. 93
Easy Seats	p. 102
Convenience Furniture	p. 131
1735: Architect-Designed Seating Begins	p. 140
The Original Interior Decorators and the Comfortable Room	p. 144
The Bedroom	p. 165
The Boudoir	p. 178
Dressing for Comfort	p. 186
The Fabric of Their Lives	p. 205
The Comfortable Body	p. 219
Coda: L'Art de Vivre	p. 229
Acknowledgments	p. 237
Notes	p. 241
Bibliography	p. 265
Illustration Credits	p. 275
Index	p. 281
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