Open Houses: Poverty, the Novel, and the Archit. Leckie<|

Open HousesPoverty, the Novel, and the Architectural Idea in Nineteenth-Century Britain\nAuthor(s): Barbara Leckie\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, United States\nImprint: University of Pennsylvania Press\nISBN-13: 9780812250299, 978-0812250299\nSynopsis\nIn the 1830s and '40s, a new preoccupation with the housing of the poor emerged in British print and visual culture. In response to cholera outbreaks, political unrest, and government initiatives, commentators evinced a keen desire to document housing conditions and agitate for housing reform. Consistently and strikingly, these efforts focused on opening the domestic interiors of the poor to public view. In Open Houses, Barbara Leckie addresses the massive body of print materials dedicated to convincing the reader of the wretchedness, unworthiness, and antipoetic quality of the living conditions of the poor and, accordingly, the urgent need for architectural reform. Putting these exposs into dialogue w.