Victorian Liberalism and Material Culture

Under a rather grandiose title, Kevin A. Morrison argues for the ‘essential significance of architectural space and decorative interiors in studying nineteenth century liberalism’ (p. 3); and indeed for ‘the fundamentally reciprocal relationship’ (p. 170) of liberal thought and its compositional spaces. Through four cleverly (if at times tenuously) linked chapters, Morrison discusses the relationship of their workspaces to the thought of John Stuart Mill, Matthew Arnold, John Morley and Robert Browning. For Mill this was his office in the India House building of the East India Company, for Arnold the South Library of the Athenaeum Club, for Morley the study/library of a series of suburban residences in South Kensington and then Wimbledon, and for Browning primarily his apartments in the Casa Guidi in Florence. As Morrison accepts, there are challenges in this enterprise. Even as protean a construct as ‘Liberalism’ does not straightforwardly encompass these four figures, except perhaps

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