Lee Jackson is a well-known Victorianist and creator of the preeminent website on Victorian London (victorianlondon.org). He is the author of Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth and Walking Dickens’ London.
“The author is a serious academic, his researches oceanic and his
arguments exhaustive, his subject as much economic as social
history [. . .] Readers of this scholarly but intoxicating book
will share the author's glee.”—John Walsh, The Sunday Times
“Lively and superbly researched history” - Paula Byrne, The
Times
“As Lee Jackson demonstrates in his beguiling study of the
19th-century entertainment industry, pleasure is, at bottom, a
deeply serious business, and the sharply opposed forces at work in
Victorian society were just as apparent on the sea-front of
England’s south coast as in a House of Commons committee room the
great strength of his book lies in its attention to detail.”—D. J.
Taylor, Wall Street Journal
“This fascinating history shows how . . . new venues flourished,
along with music halls and seaside resorts, thanks to a growing
middle class, favorable legislation, and shifting morals.”—New
Yorker
“[An] engaging account of Victorian mass entertainment [. . .]
fascinating background on the rise of London’s gin palaces, which
created panic in middle-class observers when they noticed that the
gaudy decor of these working-class venues – all shiny plate glass
and flaring gas jets – was hard to distinguish from their own
favourite West End shops” —Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, The
Guardian
“A fascinating book exploring the history of light entertainment in
this country.” – David Leafe, Irish Daily Mail
“[Jackson] is wonderfully comprehensive and engagingly readable”—
Andrew Lycett, Spectator
“Jackson creates an unfamiliar picture: gone are the stern,
upright, moral men and women of popular imagination. Instead, the
Victorians are revealed with all their foibles and desires.” —
Joanne Cormac, BBC History Magazine
“Lee Jackson’s authoritative and fascinating book makes
a nonsense of the claim that the 21st century is the age of
mass instant gratification.”—Alexander Larman, The Observer
“Lee Jackson is an expert on the Victorian era and he brings the
pleasure palaces of the title ably and vividly to life, recreating
a world that is all too often ignored in favour of the stereotype
of covered table legs and unsmiling monarchs.” — All About
History
“This fascinating book is a guide to the pleasure domes of
19th-century England, most of which would have been closed if
campaigners for moral improvement had got their way” —Clive Aslet,
Country Life
“This entertaining book provides a valuable insight into just what
our Victorian ancestors got up to in their leisure time when they
had more free time and money in their pockets” —Karen Clare, Family
Tree Magazine
“In this wide-ranging survey of Victorian fun Jackson [. . .] takes
the reader on a journey through gin palaces, music halls, seaside
resorts and football stadia to counter the narrative that the
Victorians were all about moral asceticism and po-faced
imperialism.” —Charlie Connelly, The New European
“It turns out that the Victorians were very much amused. Lee
Jackson's entertaining chronicle of 19th- century entertainment
depicts a riot of laughter and hi-jinks.”—Oldie
“[A] readable and immensely informative discussion of Victorian
popular attractions”—The Victorian Web
“Jackson’s focus is predominantly metropolitan but his conclusions
about developing London amusements are supported by reference to
other towns and cities demonstrating a fascinating overlap of
offerings not to mention personnel”— Kathryn Ferry, The
Victorian
“[A] readable and immensely informative discussion of Victorian
popular attractions and venues” – Jacqueline Banerjee, Cercles
“There is a sense, throughout Jackson’s book, of the sheer bustling
energy of our nineteenth-century forebears when it came to finding
ways to spend their leisure time” — Mark Jones, Albion
“Jackson writes well, has researched widely, has an eye for telling
detail, aided by 26 illustrations, and has something new to add on
each of his topics.”—Hugh Cunningham, Cultural and Social
History
“Jackson’s narrative is appropriately entertaining, adding much
colorful detail to a fairly well-known history.”—Robert Snape,
Journal of British Studies
“The industrialisation of the modern world is, all too often,
described entirely in terms of coal, iron and desperate factory
lives. In Palaces of Pleasure, by contrast, Lee Jackson has
produced a detailed look at the industrialisation of pleasure: how
the Victorians turned enjoyment into Big Business.”—Judith
Flanders, author of The Victorian City
“A treasure-chest of a book. Queen Victoria may not have been
amused – but her subjects certainly knew where and how to
party.”—Liza Picard, author of Victorian London
“It is a pleasure to stagger (in print, of course) from pub to
gin-shop to music hall with Lee Jackson as your companion. This is
outstanding scholarship that changes our notions of 19th-century
entertainment. It is original, thorough, accessible and fully
explains the commercial underpinnings of change in this sector
across the century. ”—Sarah Wise, author of The Blackest
Streets
“Inspired and fascinating. Jackson leads the reader on an
incredible journey and breaks new ground in our understanding of
the pioneering entrepreneurs who created mass entertainment for the
Victorians.”—Alex Werner, Lead Curator, Museum of London
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