Literary Museums at Home

This book, at the intersection of material culture, thing theory, fiction and museology, explores the different ways in which literature is exhibited and appropriated within the domestic, intimate sphere of the home. Certain daily practices involve the exhibition of literature in ways that are similar to those encountered in a museum. Interior decoration and design, bibliomania, homeware, fashion items, not to mention board games or doll’s houses, may all be considered means of fetishising literature within the home. While the book combines academic chapters, from a wide range of literary genres, across centuries and various countries, and interviews of museum directors who currently live in a museum house, it draws attention to the duality that characterises such domestic literary landscape, which simultaneously exhibit the literary and produce literature. The book delves into the past or present ways in which writers and literature lovers inhabit their home, especially when these homes become museum spaces during their lifetime, and when the objects accumulated by these literati-curators are intimately linked to their writing.

Introduction. Curating Literature Indoors. Breaking the Wall Between Homes and Museums
Caroline Marie

Living in a Museum, Opening the Home. A Conversation with Dylan Jonas Stone, visual artist. Dylan Jonas Stone: Life in a Living Archive
Caroline Marie

Part One. Inhabiting a Literary Home: Workshops where Literature is Manufactured – Habiter une maison littéraire : l’atelier de fabrique du littéraire

Auguste Comte en son appartement musée : bureau, église et cénacle (1841-1857)
David Labreure

Presqu’île des avant-gardes : formes de vie littéraire dans l’appartement d’un érudit nantais. Les médiations muséales d’un espace intime
Laurence Perrigault

Habiter un musée, ouvrir la maison. Conversation avec Nicole Bertolt, mandataire de l’œuvre de Boris Vian. « Parlez-moi de Boris » : Vivant, l’appartement de Vian
Anne Chassagnol & Caroline Marie

Part Two. At Home with Literature: Museums of the Touch – La littérature à la maison : un musée du toucher

Habiter la littérature, vivre en intimité avec le poète : éventails, jardins et encriers en Chine, XVe–XVIIIe siècles
Cédric Laurent

Home to Roost: French Literary Games of Goose, from the 1670s to the 1870s
Gemma Tidman

Doll’s Houses and Miniature Museums: Rumer Godden’s Salvaged (Literary) Homes
Chloe Flower

Living in a Museum, Opening the Home. A Conversation with Elizabeth Emery, Professor of French at Montclair State University. The Invisible Woman Writer and Collector: How Clémence d’Ennery was Erased from her Own House Museum
Anne Chassagnol

Part Three. Self-Reflexive Hybrid Spaces: Poetic Counter-Museums – Mise en abyme d’espaces hybrides : un contre-musée poétique

« Automuseografie ». Collections personnelles et récit de soi dans l’iconotexte italien contemporain
Lavinia Torti

House Museums in Contemporary Irish Women’s Poetry
Virginie Trachsler

Habiter un musée, ouvrir la maison. Conversation avec Alexia Guggémos, critique d’art et fondatrice du Musée du sourire. Vivre en poétesse dans le Musée du sourire
Anne Chassagnol & Caroline Marie