London Clubland: A Cultural History of Gender and Class in Late Victorian Britain

by Amy Milne-Smith

This work is the first to study the gentlemen's clubs that were an important feature of the Late Victorian landscape, and the first to discover the secret history of clubmen and their world, placing them at centre stage, detailing how clubland dramatically shaped 19th and early 20th-century ideas about gender, power, class, and the city.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Victorian, Research

307 pages, Hardcover

First published December 6, 2011

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

A very interesting overview of club culture, with useful comments on homosocialising and the wider social and socioeconomic context. Very readable for an academic text, with some good stories.

[C. B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A marvellous insight into a strangely over-looked subject. In resonance with a book I read recently about stately homes (written by Peter Mandler), Milne-Smith shows that this most quintessentially English of English institutions lasted not because it was unchangeable, but because it was flexible and moved with the times. At the same time, Victorian clubs give us a plethora of new perspectives on gender, masculinity, and class relations at this time in London — the chapter on bachelorhood was particularly interesting! Milne-Smith weaves all of this together very well.