Today we take for granted notions of designing rooms to achieve the right ‘mood’. Yet this language only emerged in the 19th century, when designers and clients began to think about interiors in a completely new way. Their challenge was to create atmosphere and character in ordinary living – the new ideal of the 'poetic home'.

This book examines domestic interiors from around 1800 to the mid-1890s. Rather than concentrating on individual types of furnishing (wallpapers or carpets, for example) or on historical styles (Regency or Biedermeier), it considers the design of the interior as a whole, making use of neglected 19th-century texts and images to reveal what the designers and clients actually thought about the business of creating characterful interiors.

Comprehensive and full of fresh insights, this extraordinary work of scholarship is essential reading for anyone interested in interior design.