Honorable Mention for the 2001 British Council Prize, sponsored by the North American Conference on British Studies "A fascinating look at the origins of the female shopping species in London's West End during the Victorian and Edwardian times. Rappaport's central hypothesis is heartening: Shopping, for necessities and for pleasure, was a key factor in getting domestically cloistered women out of ... Read morethe house and into town on their own... The pleasures of shopping were liberating in profound ways."
Gerri Hirshey, Mirabella "A thoughtful and accessible study that illuminates the period in a new and colorful way."
Lynne Truss, Sunday Times (London) "Living in an era of unprecedented prosperity it is interesting, not to mention instrumental, to be aware of how other societies reacted to the onset of a commercial boom. Shopping for Pleasure not only illuminates the growth of late-19th-century London, but it sheds light on our own gratuitously materialistic culture."
Lucy Moore, Washington Times "'A Pleasure' accurately describes the experience of reading this deft, rich analysis of how the West End became an enticing shopping Mecca for bourgeois women."
Choice "A fascinating as well as an erudite book ...The rise of modern shopping opened the city streets to respectable women, and played a significant role in both feminism and consumer culture"
Elaine Showalter, London Review of Books "The rise of modern shopping opened the city streets to respectable women and played a significant role in both feminism and consumer culture... A fascinating as well as an erudite book."
Elaine Showalter, London Review of Books "[An] intriguing study... Shopping for Pleasure creatively explores an assortment of conflicts about women's natures and desires that, together, constructed Victorian and Edwardian merchandising and consuming."
Pamela Walker Laird, Enterprise & Society "In her engaging and intriguing book, Erika Rappaport ... has done an excellent job of showing how the consumer culture of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century London was created, in large part, by the emancipated woman's active agency... Rappaport's book is one of those displays that are so attractive and enticing that they leave the insatiable customer wanting even more."
Theodore Koditschenk, Journal of Modern History "A well-constructed and presented book, making imaginative use of an impressive range of primary and secondary sources."
Rex Pope, Urban History Show Less