Happy Homes and the Hearts That Make Them

Happy Homes and The Hearts That Make Them, 1889. Gorgeous and ornate hardback Victorian book - Happy Homes and the Hearts That Make Them. This delightful volume was written by Samuel Smiles and revised with additional material by Charles Gaskell. The cover is SILK with the coveted vivid red boards with gilt and black accents, clean and crisp. Even the spine is beautifully detailed. And, it is in NEAR FINE condition with light shelf wear. It is 644 pages in length, it touches on topics from Good Manners to Household Management to The Power of a Good Woman to Companionship in Marriage - plus so much more! Packed full of interesting and sometimes archaic information, this book is sure to entertain and amuse. It features an ornate cover and spine, pretty printed end papers, marbled edges, and illustrations sprinkled throughout.

The front opens to a tissue covered presentation page with cherub heads by the renowned artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds. This page records the name of the recipient and the person who presented the book. Inside are many more superb engravings.
This is a thick and weighty; very comprehensive book! So much to know and to think it governed all areas of life for Victorians. This look into the social norms and conventions of their day is quite insightful. Here's a couple excerpts inside:

"Although man's qualities belong more to the head, and woman's more to the heart...a heartless man is as much out of keeping in civilized society as a stupid and unintelligent woman. The culture of all parts of the moral and intellectual nature is requisite to form the man or woman of healthy and well-balanced character. Without sympathy or consideration for others, man were a poor, stunted, sordid, selfish being; and without cultivated intelligence, the most beautiful woman were little bette than a well-dressed doll."

"It has been said that no man and no woman can be regarded as complete in their experience of life until they have been subdued into a union with the world through their affections. As woman is not woman until she has known love, neither is man man. Both are requisite to each other's completeness."

"Every man is bound to aim at the possession of a good character as one of the highest objects of life. The very effort to secure it by worthy means will furnish him with a motive of exertion; and his idea of manhood, in proportion as it is elevated, will steady and animate his motive." Chicago: U.S.Publishing House, 1886. This edition is "Carefully Revised, with Additional Matter." OCLC lists four previous editions, beginning in 1882, and one later edition released in 1889. Light fading to spine and very light shelf wear, but overall the binding is fine, bright, and attractive. Publisher's red cloth stamped in black with scenes of a well and a woman sitting in front of a hearth and with a black decorative border. Front cover and spine also lettered and stamped in gilt. Back cover stamped in blind to match front cover.