Luxury in the Eighteenth-Century Debates, Desires and Delectable Goods

Luxury was the keyword of the eighteenth century, and the history of luxury links diverse topics of enquiry such as material culture, taste, civility, sensibility, literature, and art. This book explores the political, economic, moral, and intellectual effects of the production and consumption of luxury goods, and provides a broadly-based account from a variety of perspectives.

MAXINE BERG is Professor of History and Director of the Warwick Eighteenth-Century Centre at the University of Warwick, UK. She directed the Luxury Project 1997-2000, and is now director of the Leverhulme Art and Industry Project. She is the co-editor, with Helen Clifford, of Consumers and Luxury: Consumer Culture in Europe 1650-1850 (1999), and author of The Age of Manufactures 1700-1820 (1994). She is completing a book entitled The People's Delight: Modern Luxury in Eighteenth-Century England.

ELIZABETH EGER is Lecturer in the Department of English, King's College London, UK. She is co-editor of Women and the Public Sphere (2000), editor of The Selected Writings of Elizabeth Montagu (1999). She is currently completing a book, Living Muses: Women of Reason from Enlightenment to Romanticism.