A window(box) to the soul: plants, privacy and urban display in nineteenth-century London

Abstract

This article examines domestic windows as sites where nineteenth-century London was observed, interpreted and made socially meaningful. Though ostensibly private, windows staged selective signs toward the street. Focusing on the practice of window gardening, the article argues that vegetal displays on sills functioned as semiotic interfaces, through which the city could be read. Drawing on periodical literature, philanthropic writing, gardening manuals and social investigations, it situates domestic windows within the visual culture of the modern city, showing how façades became legible surfaces. By analysing window gardening as part of urban spectatorship, the article highlights how Victorians negotiated privacy, respectability and self-presentation in everyday life.