The Coffee-House by Markman Ellis
When the first coffee-house opened in London in 1652, customers were bewildered by this strange new drink from Turkey - hot, bitter and black as soot. But those who tried coffee were soon won over. More coffee-houses were opened across London and, in the following decades, in America and Europe. For a hundred years the coffee-house occupied the centre of urban life, creating a distinctive social culture by treating all customers as equals. Gossip, dissent and sedition were exchanged and debated around their egalitarian tables. Merchants held auctions of goods, writers and poets conducted discussions, scientists demonstrated experiments and gave lectures, philantropists deliberated reforms. Coffee-houses thus played a key role in the explosion of political, financial, scientific and literary change in the 18th century. The stock market, insurance companies, political parties and the scientific symposium had their birth in the coffee-house. In the 19th century the coffee-house declined, but the 1950s witnessed a dramatic revival in the popularity of coffee with the appearance of espresso machines and the coffee bar', and the 1990s saw the arrival of retail chains like Starbucks.
'THE COFFEE-HOUSE is everything it should be - careful, intelligent and embodying the spirit of its subject by being written for the digestion of the general publicIt contains the perfect recipe of scholarship, stimulant and froth.' THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'This is a convincing and meticulous read, building an intriguing and engrossing picture of coffee's role in British society. And what a relief that this isn't yet another wide-ranging cherry-picking history of a commodity, but rather a close examination of how particular rooms shaped the British identity. There are plenty of incidental surprises, but the total picture is the revelation: something happened when coffee met the English Enlightenment and the result was an explosion of creativity..' THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY '...readable and scholarly account of an important and curiously neglected phenomenon. Rich in evocative detail... and strong on social, political and economic context, The Coffee House is a book for the coffee-lover and historian alike.' THE SPECTATOR 'Ellis's sober, rigorous narrative lucidly dovetails the political with the cultural, and is particularly engaging as it charts the convulsions of England through its early modernisation... Ellis unpicks the ideologies that have contributed so importantly to our entrenched beliefs in freedom of speech and in our political constitution.' THE DAILY TELEGRAPH 'brilliant' -- Bee Wilson THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH MAGAZINE '... [Ellis] circles his subject, elegantly and thoughtfully investigating the cultures - political, literary and financial - that the rituals of the coffee house have helped to shape... cooly scrutinizing the romance of the bean, this book invites us to ask ourselves who we think we are when we order a cappuccino "with wings".' -- Norma Clarke TLS
Markman Ellis was educated at the universities of Auckland and Cambridge, and now teaches 18th-century literature and culture at Queen Mary, University of London. He has published books on the sentimental novel and gothic fiction, and articles on many topics in 18th-century studies, including georgic poetry, slavery, kangaroos and lap-dogs.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780297843191 |
| ISBN 10 | 0297843192 |
| Title | The Coffee-House |
| Author | Markman Ellis |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Orion Publishing Co |
| Year published | 2004-10-14 |
| Number of pages | 256 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |