Mass Observing the Coronation of Charles III: Monarchy, Spectacle and Experience

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Using the observations and writings of the British public who experienced it, this book documents and analyses the coronation of Charles III in its social and cultural contexts. It relates the activities and opinions of Mass Observers on the preparations and occasion of the first British coronation in 70 years, as well as the findings of Mass Observation investigators in several locations in the UK (including London) during the May 6th weekend.

Mass Observing the Coronation of Charles III places the coronation of Charles III within a broader framework of royal events in the 20th and 21st centuries, especially the ways in which people think about and engage with monarchy, whilst offering critical reflection on social and cultural continuity and change in Britain over the 20th and 21st centuries.

The book includes the reports and photographs of the mobile investigators, as well as Observers writings of pre-coronation activities and the day diaries for May 6th. Following in the footsteps of the original 1937 George VI Mass-Observation coronation publication, the volume also bears witness to social and cultural change over time, including the media response and reporting of both pre-coronation planning and coronation weekend events, such as the Big Lunch, the Big Help Out and the crowning ceremony itself.

Author Bio

Jennifer J. Purcell is Professor of History at Saint Michaels College in Vermont, USA. Using Mass-Observation diaries and directives, her first book, Domestic Soldiers (2010) sought to understand the day-to-day lives of six women on the home front during the Second World War.

Lucy Curzon is Associate Professor of Contemporary and Modern Art History at the University of Alabama, USA. She is the author of Mass-Observation and Visual Culture: Depicting Everyday Lives in Britain (2017), which was awarded the 2018 Historians of British Art Book Award for Exemplary Scholarship on the Period after 1800.

Fiona Courage is Head of Collections and Academic Services & Curator of the Mass-Observation Archive at the University of Sussex, UK. Her publications include Recipes for co-production with children and young people in Time, Technology and Documentation in a Digital Age (Bloomsbury, 2018; with Liam Berriman and Kate Howland) and Mass Observing Sport in Recording Leisure Lives: sports, spectacles and spectators in 20th century Britain (2013; with Jessica Scantlebury).