This volume examines hotels, inns, restaurants, and travelling on luxurious trains and ships. The volume also explores social rituals, consumer culture, and issues of class and gender as well as the institutions of travelling for health, education, or any other purpose.

This two-volume collection of British primary sources examines institutions such as hotels, inns, arcades, bazaars, co-operatives, shops and department stores in the long nineteenth century, which were often coded as ‘luxurious’. This period was marked not only by an increase of individual consumerism but also by the institutionalisation of opulent, often purpose-built spaces such as the much-admired new grand hotels, supposedly an American invention, and department stores, modelled on the French grands magasins. These environments were tied to leisure (no longer a prerogative of the upper classes) and thus to modernity. In addition to addressing the luxurious side of these institutions, including architectural innovation and interior decoration, we also consider the other side of luxury, examining the experience of staff and period debates over the morality of consumption. This edition seeks to explore a fascinating but hitherto often neglected side of the British nineteenth century by bringing together a collection of annotated primary texts and visual material documenting these ‘temples of luxury’ as they were seen by their contemporaries.

"This two volume collection of British primary sources examines luxury institutions such as hotels and department stores in the long nineteenth century. This period was marked not only by an increase of individual consumerism but also by the institutionalisation of opulent, often purpose-built spaces of consumption. This edition seeks to explore a fascinating but hitherto often neglected side of the British nineteenth century by bringing together a collection of annotated primary texts and visual material documenting these "temples of luxury" as they were seen by their contemporaries"--

With an artist's eye and an explorer's heart, Temple St. Clair fashions jewelry from rare colored gems with distinctive gold work to illustrate universal narratives of the earth and cosmos. In each of the one-of-a-kind pieces that comprise her Haute Couture collection, St. Clair explores our relationship to animals through a lens of whimsy and discovery and celebrates a connoisseur's level of gemstones and Florentine craftsmanship. The Golden Menagerie offers an exclusive window into the alchemic jeweler's process, illustrating the collection through St. Clair's original watercolor paintings and luminous photography of each stage of creation. From the articulated Secret Garden Serpent necklace to vibrantly jeweled Fantasy Birds earrings to a ring mounted with a falcon ready to take flight from the wearer's finger, St. Clair's creations come to life on the page, imbued with alchemy and artistry.