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A fascinating and colourful social history of the nighttime in the pre-Industrial era.
AT DAY’S CLOSE charts a fresh realm of Western culture, nocturnal life from the late medieval period to the Industrial revolution.
The book focuses on the cadences of daily life, investigating nighttime in its own right and resurrecting a rich and complex universe in which persons passed nearly half of their lives – a world, long-lost to historians, of blanket fairs, night freaks, and curtain lectures, of sun-suckers, moon-cursers and night-kings. It is not only the vocabulary that has disappeared, AT DAY’S CLOSE will restitute many facts which have been either lost or forgotten. It is a significant and newsworthy contribution to social history, filled with substantial research, stories and new discoveries.
Ekirch uses a wide range of sources to reconstruct how the night was lived in the past : travel accounts, memoirs, letters, poems, plays, court records, coroner’s reports, depositions and laws dealing with curfews, crime and lighting. He has analysed working-class autobiographies, proverbs, nursery rhymes, ballads and sermons, and folklore, as well as consulting medical, psychological and anthropological papers.
AT DAY’S CLOSE charts a fresh realm of Western culture, nocturnal life from the late medieval period to the Industrial revolution.
The book focuses on the cadences of daily life, investigating nighttime in its own right and resurrecting a rich and complex universe in which persons passed nearly half of their lives – a world, long-lost to historians, of blanket fairs, night freaks, and curtain lectures, of sun-suckers, moon-cursers and night-kings. It is not only the vocabulary that has disappeared, AT DAY’S CLOSE will restitute many facts which have been either lost or forgotten. It is a significant and newsworthy contribution to social history, filled with substantial research, stories and new discoveries.
Ekirch uses a wide range of sources to reconstruct how the night was lived in the past : travel accounts, memoirs, letters, poems, plays, court records, coroner’s reports, depositions and laws dealing with curfews, crime and lighting. He has analysed working-class autobiographies, proverbs, nursery rhymes, ballads and sermons, and folklore, as well as consulting medical, psychological and anthropological papers.
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Reviews
This enlightening book ... is one of the most fascinating and rewarding literary experiences you are likely to discover this year.
Just the sort of browsable treat guaranteed to cause insomnia.
Wonderful... Ekirch spares no pains to rediscover the lost world of the dark. ... A book that can't be summarised but must be experienced.
Ekirch's absorbing history reveals an alternative universe shaped by real and imaginary perils.
Night-time has been curiously ignored by social historians. This fine book corrects that lack. ... Entertaining and informative, this book is also challenging.
A wonderful revelation of a vanished age of darkness
In his fascinating survey of the dark hours of the pre-industrial era, A Roger Ekirch takes us deep into an age when the very lack of light threw life into confusion ... an engrossing book that illuminates the darker recesses of the past
A comprehensive account of nightlife...bursting with esoteric and well-sourced information about everything from candles and curfews to church bells and chamber pots
Wonderful... Ekirch spares no pains to rediscover the lost world of the dark ... A book that can't be summarised but must be experienced
Just the sort of browsable treat guaranteed to cause insomnia
Night-time has been curiously ignored by social historians. This fine book corrects that lack ... Entertaining and informative
Ekirch's absorbing history reveals an alternative universe shaped by real and imaginary perils
This enlightening book ... is one of the most fascinating and rewarding literary experiences you are likely to discover this year
Fascinating ... exploring what went on at night between 1500 and 1830 ... Here are microcultural tales of pirates and robbers, blanket fairs (people climbing into bed together to talk before going to sleep), curtain lectures (wives who felt emboldened by the dark to complain to their recumbent husbands) and night-kings (sewer cleaners in German)
The book is especially engaging on the social significance of the night, the moral meanings projected into the dark
Meticulously researched ... AT DAY'S CLOSE is a splendid book ... great entertainment, and to social historians it will be of immense value
A triumph of social history. Almost every page contains something to surprise the reader ... one of the most enjoyable literary experiences of the year
An enthralling anthropology of the shadow reals of Western Europe from the late Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution ... a passionate case against too much artificial light
There are so many good stories here which do not usually find themselves between the same covers
Absorbing ... fascinating ... tells us about everything from witches to firefighting, architecture to domestic violence ... a monumental study