Luxury and pleasure in eighteenth-century Britain

the long version

"Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain explores the invention, making, and buying of new, semi-luxury, and fashionable consumer goods during the eighteenth century. It follows the progress of china tea ware, cutlery, candlesticks, buckles, and buttons, as they were made, shopped for, and then displayed in the homes of Britain's urban middling classes." "Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain is cultural history at its best, built on fresh evidence drawn directly from customs accounts, advertising material, company papers, and contemporary correspondence. Maxine Berg tells the stories and analyses the developments that led from a global trade in Eastern luxuries beginning in the sixteenth century to the new global trade in British-made consumer goods by the end of the eighteenth century."--Jacket.