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As part of a roundtable response to Peter Andersson's article 'How Civilized Were the Victorians', this paper argues that material culture studies can help us to articulate new historical narratives about the Victorian period. Post-structuralism helped to privilege linguistic analysis to the detriment of direct scrutiny of material culture while approaches aligned to archaeology and anthropology enable us to rediscover the significance of physical matter and those who shaped it. The opportunities for learning how to study material culture are limited but could be enhanced through the heritage sector. As a case study, the paper examines the first selected edition of Tennyson's verse. The covers, layout and design of the book clashed with the poet's ambition of publishing a cheap edition of his poetry for the working classes. The book generated a lot of profit and the selection provides evidence of Tennyson's attempts to be populist and patriotic. The posthumous description of this book, written by the poet's son, misrepresents it as a philanthropic gesture to poor readers while it was in fact a moderately expensive book pitched at middle-class readers. This interpretation of the book is only available though study of the artefact. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper will examine how the physical reality behind Tallis’s illustrations can be illuminated to explore the commercial, domestic and social dimensions of Tallis’s London. It will explore the range of material culture available, and how this can be used to analyse interior space, in particular through English Heritage’s Architectural Study Collection. Two preliminary case studies will investigate the future potential for looking behind the façades of early Victorian London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]