Narrative

13. General knowledge of home, however, can be understood in more immediate ways not restricted to London. Home is where one lives, which might be understood in terms of country, city, neighborhood or street, but is more often where one sleeps and eats, also taking responsibility for the health and well being of oneself, relatives and others on a daily basis. Accumulating general knowledge for intellectual, professional, social and other reasons was important to many readers, but so too was the health and prosperity of the home. Several works in the Popular Romanticism database point in this direction. The first is the twelfth edition of Culpepper’s English Physician; and Complete Herbal by E. Sibly, M.D. (London: For the Proprietor, 1809) – frequent reprints indicating the continued usefulness of the subject.