fiefoe

The book is heavily Anglo/American-centric, and makes me want to read a similar book based in Asia.

'Royal progress' was really expensive on the visitees. {曹家哭啊。}
Queen Anne was so fat that she couldn't walk the stairs and had to be lowered through a trap door down into the hall.
Ice was America's second biggest crop, by weight, for decades.
Mrs. Beeton's Household Management book is very harsh on tomatoes, which she thought to cause vertigo.
Castle Howard's self-taught architect and his "heavily scented" age, with his patron being "nondescript but uncontrollably wealthy".
Secretive Kitkat club was founded by a baker; Duke of Marlborough was so parsimonious he didn't not dot his 'i's in order to save ink.
Crop rotation greatly improved on productivity of the land.
Top mahogany wood from the Caribbean made the sculptural Rococo style possible.
Chippendale's pattern book brought him to fame. Craftsmanship hasn't been lost, it's the wood quality that's unreproducible nowadays.
Pepsy's remark on trying a newfangled beverage called tea got noticed by one scholar, which led to his whole diary catching attention from another scholar, which is how we all got to know about him.
Some rich husband being 'a dignified hole in the room, an invisible hand that signs the checks.'
A house so large that no accounts of it is the same.
One servant/secret wife kept a diary about drudgery for years to oblige her husband.

"At Home"