Single Life and the City 1200-1900
Single Life and the City 1200-1900
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单身生活与城市 1200-1900
DOI：
10.1057/9781137406408_11
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发表时间：
2015
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Stobart J
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Stobart J
在1763年至1764年的冬天，斯通利修道院还活着，工匠们正在为爱德华·利的到来做准备，爱德华·利将于3月成年，届时他将继承庄园，成为王国的贵族。他的管家塞缪尔·巴特勒（Samuel Butler）忙碌忙着给各种商人写信，包括伦敦的家具商托马斯·伯内特（Thomas Burnett）。得知前一年订购的一些家具现在已经准备好交付，他在1764年2月写道：“至于现在把家具送下去，最好还是把它留在原处，因为我们的房子现在比以往任何时候都乱.因为我们正在对房子的中间部分进行重大改造。”[1]这封信和围绕它的事件立刻证实并质疑了我们对18世纪英国精英家庭消费的许多理解。我们有一个非常富有的年轻人，很快就会继承一笔每年价值约1万英镑的遗产，他正忙着装修自己的房子，并在里面装上从伦敦订购的新家具。但是没有妻子，显然爱德华·利也没有前景。这是一个单身男人，他的家人在宗教改革后获得了一所房子，并在他的祖父，第三任李勋爵的大力扩展下，拥有宏伟的新巴洛克式西翼。2这个案例可以告诉我们什么关于精英阶层更广泛的家庭消费过程和实践，以及单身和男性对这些人的影响？
During the winter of 1763–64, Stoneleigh Abbey was alive with craftsmen working to prepare the house in time for Edward Leigh’s coming of age in March, when he would inherit the estate and become a peer of the realm. His steward, Samuel Butler, was kept busy writing letters to a variety of tradesmen, including the London upholsterer, Thomas Burnett. Being informed that some of the furniture ordered the previous year was now ready for delivery, he wrote in February 1764: “as to sending the furniture down at present, twill be best to retain it where it is, for our House is now in greater confusion than ever … any furniture for the bettermost Rooms will run great hazard of being spoil’d if sent yet, as we are making great alterations to the middle part of the House”.1This correspondence and the events surrounding it at once confirm and question many of our understandings of elite domestic consumption in eighteenth-century England. We have a very wealthy young man, soon to inherit an estate worth around £10,000 per annum, busily improving his house and filling it with new furniture ordered from London. But there is no wife, and apparently no prospect of one for Edward Leigh. This is a single man, refurbishing a house acquired by his family following the Reformation and substantially extended by his grandfather, the third Lord Leigh, with a grandiose neo-baroque west wing.2What can this case tell us about the wider processes and practices of domestic consumption amongst the elite and the impact on these of being single and male?