num_pages: 279
description: The shopgirl was the subject of popular novels,newspaper articles, and political treatises on women's work and leisureat the turn of the twentieth century. But who exactly was she, and whydid she feature in so many narratives about women, sexuality, and urbanlife? "In Consuming Labor, Leisure, and the London Shopgirl,1880-1920, " Lise Shapiro Sanders examines the cultural significance ofthe shopgirl-both historical figure and fictional heroine-from the endof Queen Victoria's reign through the First World War. As the authorreveals, the shopgirl embodied the fantasies associated with a growingconsumer romantic adventure, upward mobility, and theacquisition of material goods. Reading novels such as George Gissing's"The Odd Women" and W. Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage" as well asshort stories, musical comedies, and films, Sanders argues that theLondon shopgirl appeared in the midst of controversies over sexualmorality and the pleasures and dangers of London itself. Sandersexplores the shopgirl's centrality to modern conceptions of fantasy,desire, and everyday life for working women and argues for her as a keyfigure in cultural and social histories of the period. This innovativeinterdisciplinary study makes an important contribution to research onwomen, class, and consumer culture and will appeal to scholars,students, and enthusiasts of Victorian and Edwardian life andliterature. Lise Shapiro Sanders is assistant professor of Englishliterature and cultural studies at Hampshire College, Amherst,Massachusetts.
language: English
title: CONSUMING FANTASIES: LABOR, LEISURE, AND THE LONDON SHOPGIRL,
titlecomplete: CONSUMING FANTASIES: LABOR, LEISURE, AND THE LONDON SHOPGIRL,
ratings_count: 2
publisher: Ohio State University Press