Lynn Knight

the-button-box

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more

source_10558

By signing up, I confirm that I'm over 16. To find out what personal data we collect and how we use it, please visit our <a href="/company/about-us/notices/privacy-policy/">Privacy Policy</a>

Keep an eye out for a confirmation in your inbox

Stories, ideas and giveaways to help you spark young imaginations

source_10972

The latest books, activities and tips to help you grow little readers

source_10975

About us

About Us (Header 4)

john-le-carre-a-legacy-of-spies-960-2.jpg

Margaret Atwood

Richard Osman

Malorie Blackman

George Orwell

marian_keyes_mobile_320x200px.png

Elif Shafak

shonfaye

Authors (Header 3)

Books (Header 2)

Company

Features (Header 1)

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

The Button Box

Knight explores her own family’s history and, in parallel, the intimate history of women in the 20th century… The politics of being a modern woman are revealed through changing fashions… In Knight’s hands, buttons – the humblest of everyday objects – become portals into the past, charting our progress along that road.

Charming book… Knight’s brilliant notion is to use the button box she inherited from her grandmother as a way of delving into the fabric, literal and metaphorical, of the women who wore them… A patchwork of memory, anecdote and deft quotation.

Inspired by her own shimmering box of toggles, clasps and buckles, Knight takes us on an ingenious tour of domestic and social history over the last century… From this core of very personal material, Knight writes more generally of ordinary women’s lives and changing prospects over three generations, of clothes as self-expression, as defiance, as entertainment, as evidence of frugality and frivolity all rolled into one.

The drama of women’s lives from the 19th to the mid-20th century was hidden in plain sight among the brightly coloured buttons that rattled so enticingly in [Knight’s] grandmother’s Quality Street tin… Fascinating social history.

An unusual and irresistibly delightful account of more than a century’s worth of women’s lives… This is a book to make you smile, a story luminous with nostalgia… Delicious gem of a book.

[Knight] quotes like a dream, cherry-picking bon mots from sources far, wide and delightful... There are plenty of curious and quirky details.

A sweeping look at how women’s clothing has developed as our place in society has evolved… A delight.

Broader social history is approached through the rich, vivid stories… These buttons…tell an intimate story of changing times.

Each trinket of the past comes to life, giving a nice nostalgic and informative look into the history of fashion, the Great War and even a few comical anecdotes on sex and relationships.

Lively trip through haberdashery history.

I found this a great read for all ages and a genuine insight into the social history of different times.

Knight is a lively minded writer… Knight trims her story with wonderful arcane clothes-related information.

If ever there was a case for book groups to abandon fiction… [This] is it… Irresistible.

If you spent many happy hours as a child messing about with buttons, you’ll love The Button Box

A box which contains the buttons of three generations of women in Lynn Knight’s family is at the centre of this book, and is both ordinary and remarkable, prosaic and magical… The only illustrations of the buttons and clothes in the book appear on the dust jacket and at the start of each chapter, yet through Knight’s prose we are able to vividly picture them and ourselves rummaging through an old button box, imagining the dresses and the lives that they once belonged to

The Story of Women in the 20th Century Told Through the Clothes They Wore

A wooden box holds the buttons of three generations of women in Lynn Knight’s family – each one with its own tale to tell... 
 
Tracing the story of women at home and in work, from the jet buttons of Victorian mourning, to the short skirts of the 1960s, taking in suffragettes, bachelor girls, little dressmakers, Biba and the hankering for vintage, The Button Box lifts the lid on women’s lives and their clothes with elegance and wit.

Lifting the Lid on Women's Lives

An ingenious tour of domestic and social history over the last century (Guardian) - the story of women in the twentieth century told through the clothes they wore

Lynn Knight was born in Derbyshire and lives in London. The women of her family, who have passed on many stories along with beaded bags and buttoned gauntlets, fostered her interest in the texture and narratives of women's lives. She is also the author of the biography Clarice Cliff (2005), and a memoir, Lemon Sherbet and Dolly Blue: The Story of an Accidental Family (2011).

The Button Box

Select a format:

Retailers:

Summary

Reviews

About the author

Lynn Knight

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter