The puffery and practicality of etiquette books: A new take on Victorian information culture

Weller, Toni

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/89734 Copy

Description

Title

The puffery and practicality of etiquette books: A new take on Victorian information culture

Author(s)

Weller, Toni

Issue Date

2014

Keyword(s)

• Etiquette Books
• Print Culture
• Information Culture

Abstract

Traditionally, nineteenth-century etiquette books have been used by scholars mainly as evidence of conventions of manners and good behavior, supporting an expanding print culture in a new mass market. It is argued here that etiquette books should be re-explored in terms of the emerging information culture of the nineteenth century and that viewed in this light they can be seen to be disseminating information of two very particular kinds different from the traditional maxims of behavior and social decorum associated with etiquette. The first was the very practical type of information they espoused—information that served a functional purpose. The second was the way in which new forms of promotion and puffery about products and changing social expectations were used within etiquette books, embracing the broader information discourse of this period. Together, it is suggested that the Victorians’ fascination with information was not limited to early forms of information management or technology but also embraced more sociocultural forms and that information historiography can offer new insights into traditionally overlooked source material.

Publisher

Johns Hopkins University Press and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

ISSN

1559-0682

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/89734

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2014.0011

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2014 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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