Propriety, Performance and Desire: An Analysis of Consumer Culture in Early Nineteenth Century Britain

This thesis argues that the development consumer culture in early nineteenth century Britain formed part of a broader conservative response to a series of severe and sustained political, economic, social, intellectual and military upheavals that followed the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. It argues that the early nineteenth century in Britain represents a moment where the demands of expanding productive forces and consumers coalesced with the anxieties caused by successive internal and external crises to produce a marketplace that was at once a source of liberation and excitement for those wishing to engage in aesthetic pleasure-seeking through consumption, but also heavily intruded upon by a resurgent conservative discourse desiring to restore and maintain socio-economic and cultural stability in the nation.