Through The Looking Glasses: The Spectacular Life of Spectacles - Hardcover

Elborough, Travis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1408712849 ISBN 13: 9781408712849

Publisher: Little, Brown, 2021

Synopsis

'Elegant and multi-focal. Glorious!' Simon Garfield

The humble pair of glasses might just be one the world's greatest inventions, allowing millions to see a world that might otherwise appear a blur. And yet how much do many of us even really think about these things perched on the ends of our noses?

In this eye-opening history Travis Elborough traces the fascinating true story of spectacles: from their inception as primitive visual aids to monkish scribes right through to today's designer eyewear and the augmented reality of Google Glass. And taking in along the way such delights as lorgnettes, monocles, pince-nez, tortoise-shell 'Windsors' and Ray Ban aviator shades.

Peering into early theories about how the eye worked, he considers the theological and philosophical arguments about the limits of perception by Greek thinkers, Roman statesmen and Arab scholars. There are encounters with ingenious medieval Italian glassmakers, myopic Renaissance rulers and spectacle-makers and opticians, brilliant, mad, bad and dangerous to know, in the Londons of Samuel Pepys, Dr Johnson and Sherlock Holmes.

We learn how eyeglasses were the making of the silent movie star Harold Lloyd and the rock n roller Buddy Holly and helped liberate an exasperated John Lennon from Beatlemania. Get hip to horn-rims with Dizzy Gillespie and Michael Caine And see girls in glasses through the lenses of the crime fiction by Dorothy L Sayers and Raymond Chandler and the full-screen figure of Marilyn Monroe.

Through the Looking Glasses is about vision and the need for humanity to see clearly, and where the impulse to improve our eyesight has led us. The society of the spectacle may finally be upon us . . . but how much of it do we really see?

About this title

About the Author

Acclaimed by the Guardian as 'one of the country's finest pop culture historians', Travis Elborough has been a freelance writer, author, broadcaster and cultural commentator for nearly two decades. Elborough's books include Wish You Were Here: England on Sea, The Long-Player Goodbye, a hymn to vinyl records that inspired the BBC4 documentary When Albums Ruled the World, in which he also appeared, and A Walk in the Park, a loving exploration of public parks and green space. Elborough regularly appears on Radio 4 and recently wrote and presented the five-part series, The Rise and Fall of the Antique, and is a frequent contributor to the Guardian and Observer, among other newspapers and magazines.

From the Back Cover

'A cultural historian with a touch of the Betjemans and a lick of the Meades about him' Monocle magazine

'A fascinating, informative, revelatory book' William Boyd, Guardian on A Walk in the Park

'Travis Elborough is becoming a latter-day Alan Bennett. Let loose in an array of reference libraries, he summons many a curious fact ... from the shelves, which makes for a rich narrative ... Alluring detail fills every page' Christopher Hawtree, Spectator on A Walk in the Park

From the Inside Flap

The humble pair of glasses might just be one the world's greatest inventions, allowing millions to see a world that might otherwise appear a blur. And yet how much do many of us even really think about these things perched on the ends of our noses? Travis Elborough traces the fascinating true story of spectacles: from their inception as primitive visual aids to monkish scribes right through to today's designer eyewear.

Peering into early theories about how the eye worked, he considers the theological and philosophical arguments about the limits of perception by Greek thinkers, Roman statesmen and Arab scholars. There are encounters with ingenious medieval Italian glassmakers, myopic Renaissance rulers and spectacle-makers and opticians, brilliant, mad, bad and dangerous to know, in the Londons of Samuel Pepys, Dr Johnson and Sherlock Holmes.
We learn how glasses were the making of the rock' n' roller Buddy Holly, helped liberate an exasperated John Lennon from Beatlemania and added to Michael Caine's sexual allure . We see women in glasses through the lenses of crime fiction by Dorothy L Sayers and Raymond Chandler and the full-screen figure of Marilyn Monroe.

Through the Looking Glasses is about vision and the need for humanity to see clearly, and where the impulse to improve our eyesight has led us. The society of the spectacle may finally be upon us . . . but how much of it do we really see?

Edition details

• Publisher: Little, Brown
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1408712849
• ISBN 13: 9781408712849
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352