Background Reading

Key books

De Bruijn, E., Chinese Wallpaper in Britain and Ireland, National Trust, 2017

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​Dodwell, C. R., (Foreword) A Decorative Art: 19th Century Wallpapers in the Whitworth Art Gallery, Greater Manchester Council, 1985

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Hendon, Z., Wallpaper, Shire Publications, 2018

Hoskins, L., [ed], The Papered Wall: the History, Patterns and Techniques of Wallpaper, Thames & Hudson, 2005

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Rosoman, T., London Wallpapers: their Manufacture and Use 1690–1840, Oxford University Press, 2010

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Saunders, G., Wallpaper in Interior Decoration, V&A, 2002

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Wells-Cole, A., Historic Paper Hangings from Temple Newsam and Other English Houses, Leeds City Art Galleries, 1983

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Wells-Cole, A. & Walker, B., Wallpapers at Temple Newsam 1635 to the present, Leeds Art Fund, 2018

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Additional resources

Ackerman, P., Wallpaper: its History, Design and Use,  Heinemann, 1923

Anderson, J., Glorious Splendor: the 18th-Century Wallpapers in the Jeremiah Lee Mansion in  Marblehead, Massachusetts, Donning Company, 2013

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Andrews, W.D., 'The Cowtan Order Books, 1824–1938: an analysis of wallpaper and decorating records
and their use as historical sources' (PhD thesis, University of Cambridge)

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Andrews, Wendy, and James W. P. Campbell. 2021. ‘How Wallpaper Archives Contribute to Our Understanding of Historic Building Interiors’. Journal of Architectural Conservation 27 (1–2): 66–83. https://doi.org/10.1080/13556207.2021.1923911.

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Brazil, Helena. "Lincrusta 1877-1887: The Development, Designs and Character of Lincrusta Walton"  PhD Thesis, Lincoln University (2018).

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Bruijn, Emile de. 2017. Chinese Wallpaper in Britain and Ireland. Philp Wilson Publishers.

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Bruijn, Emile de, Andrew Bush, and Helen Clifford. 2016. ‘Chinese Wallpaper in National Trust Houses’. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 39 (1): 149–50. https://doi.org/10.1111/1754-0208.12277.

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Brunet, Geneviève. 2012. The Wallpaper Book. Thames & Hudson.

​Busciglio-Ritter, Thomas. 2023. ‘At Home in the Wild: Race, Power, and Domesticity in the Transatlantic Wallpapers of Zuber & Co.’ React/Review: A Responsive Journal for Art & Architecture, ahead of print. https://doi.org/10.5070/R53061227

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Cerman, Jérémie. 2012. Le Papier Peint Art Nouveau: Création, Production, Diffusion (in French). Mare Martin.

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Clifford, Helen. 2018. ‘Chinese Wallpaper: From Canton to Country House’. In The East India Company at Home. UCL Press.

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Clouzot, H., Histoire du papier peint en France, FB&C Ltd (republished), 2018

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Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration, Wallpaper: a Picture-book of Examples in the Collection of the Cooper Union Museum. New York. 1961

Crace, J.G., (Author) and Sugden A.V & Entwistle E.A. (Foreword) Crace, J. G., The Crace Papers: Two Lectures on the History of Paperhangings, 1839

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De Salvo, D., & Massie, A. (curation); Saunders, G. (essay) Apocalyptic Wallpaper, Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, 1997

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Dyer, Serena. 2018. ‘Masculinities, Wallpaper, and Crafting Domestic Space within the University, 1795-1914’. Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies 2 (14): 1–19 

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Ellis, L., 'I Believe in Wallpaper': Examining Salesmanship through The Wallpaper Magazine 1920–1939'

(MA dissertation, University of Brighton, 2019)

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Entwisle, E.A., A Literary History of Wallpaper, Batsford, 1960

Entwisle, E.A., The Book of Wallpaper: a History and an Appreciation, Kingsmead Reprints, 1970

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Fischer, C., Wallcoverings: Applying the Language of Color and Pattern. From the F. Schumacher & Co Collections, Universe, 2003

Fischer, J., Wallpaper - Tapeten - Papiers peints,  Ullman. 2008

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Forster-Garbutt, Eva. "Patterns of Consumption: Wallpaper in 19th Century New Zealand" Diss. Open Access Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington, 2025.

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Forster-Garbutt, Eva, Nigel Isaacs, and Joanna Merwood-Salisbury. 2024. ‘An “Artistic Display of Wares”: The Wallpaper Trade During Otago’s Goldrush, 1860-1867’. Fabrications, no. Generic: 1. https://doi.org/10.1080/10331867.2023.2298020.

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​Greysmith, B., Wallpaper, Studio Vista, 1976

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Hapgood, M.O., Wallpaper and the Artist: from Dürer to Warhol, Abbeville Press, 1992

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Hardy, Emma. 2024. "A modern but useful art: William Morris, Jeffrey and Co. and the Morris & Co. wallpapers 1864-C.1928". Ph.D. diss., Open University, 2024

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Hawksley, L., Bitten by Witch Fever: Wallpaper & Arsenic in the Victorian Home, Thames and Hudson, 2016

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Highmore, Ben. 2013. ‘Brutalist Wallpaper and the Independent Group’. Journal of Visual Culture 12 (2): 205–21

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Jaqué, B., Le Papier Peint: Decor d’Illusion, Editions Jean-Pierre Gyss, 1989

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Jennings, A.S., Wallpapers and Wall Coverings, Trade Papers Publishing Co, 1903

Jennings, A.S., Wall-paper Decoration, Trade Papers Publishing Co, 1907​

Kelly, R. M., The Backstory of Wallpaper: Paper-Hangings 1650–1750, WallpaperScholar.com, 2013

Khan, S., Paper Tapestry, Epsom Wells & The Origin of English Wallpaper 1680–1720, 2012

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Koldeweij, E., The Marketing of Gilt Leather in Seventeenth-Century Holland, Print Quarterly, XIII, 1996

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Kosuda-Warner, J., Kitsch to Corbusier: Wallpapers from the 1950s.  Exhibition catalogue, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, New York, 1995

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Kosuda-Warner, J., Landscape Wallcoverings, Scala, London; Cooper-Hewitt New York, 2001

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Lawrence, D., 'Getting the decorators in: trade and practice c1850–1950',  WHS website blog

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Lister, Jenny. 2025. William Morris Pattern & Design. Thames & Hudson.

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Lynn, C., Wallpaper in America from the Seventeenth Century to World War I, Norton, 1980

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McCarthy, Christine. 2011. ‘Before Official Statistics: The Early Commerce of Wallpaper in New Zealand’. Fabrications 20 (1): 96–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/10331867.2011.10539673

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Mapes, P., 'The English Wallpaper Trade 1750–1830' PhD thesis, University of Leicester, 2016

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Nouvel-Kammerer, O., (Ed) French Scenic Wallpaper, 1795–1865, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris 1990; English ed. 2000

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Nouvel-Kammeerer, O., (Ed) Wallpapers of France 1800–1850, Zwemmer, 1981

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Nylander, R.C., et al, Wallpaper in New England, SPNEA, 1986

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Nylander, R.C., Wallpapers for Historic Buildings, The Preservation Press, 1992

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Oman, C.C., and Hamilton, J., Wallpapers: a History and Illustrated Catalogue of the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, V&A, 1982

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Owens, Gwendolyn. 2010. ‘The Iconography of Kitchen Wallpaper in Canada’. Cuizine 2 (1): 0. https://doi.org/DOI%2520https://doi.org/10.7202/039511ar

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Parry, L., ed., William Morris, Philip Wilson Publishers in association with the Victoria & Albert Museum, 1996

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Sanborn, K., Old time wall papers; an account of the pictorial papers on our forefathers' walls, with a study of the historical development of wall paper making and decoration, Literary Collector Press, Greenwich, Conn.,1905

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Saumarez Smith, C., Eighteenth-Century Decoration: Design and the Domestic Interior in England, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993

Saunders, G., Woods, C., Heyse-Moore, D., Keeble, T. Walls Are Talking, The Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester & KWS Publishers, 2010

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Schoeser, M., Sanderson: the Essence of English Decoration, Thames & Hudson, 2010​

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Schoeser, Mary. 2022. The Art of Wallpaper: Morris & Co in Context. ACC Art Books

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Skinner, D., Wallpapers in Ireland 1700–1900, Churchill House Press, 2014

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Skipper, Lynda. 2017. ‘The Evolution of Wallpaper Interior Design Schemes in a Commercial Setting: The Interiors of the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel (Midland Grand Hotel), London 1870s–1980s’. Journal of Design History (UK) 30 (3): 315–34. https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/epw039

Stavenow-Hidemark, E. (ed.), New Discoveries, New Research, papers from the international wallpaper conference at the Nordiska Museet, Stockholm 2007. (2009).

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Suga, Yasuko. 2008. ‘“Artistic and Commercial” Japan: Modernity, Authenticity and Japanese Leather Paper’. In Buying for the Home: Shopping for the Domestic from the Seventeenth Century to the Present, edited by Margaret Ponsonby and David Hussey. Routledge.

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Sugden, A.V., and Edmondson, J.L., A History of English Wallpaper; 1509–1914, Batsford 1926

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Sugden, A.V., WPM: The Pattern of a Great Organisation, The Wallpaper Manufacturers Ltd, 1949

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Sugden, A.V. and Entwisle, E. A., Potters of Darwen: a Century of Wallpaper Printing by Machinery 1839–1939, G. Falkner &Sons, 1939

Taylor, L. (foreword) Wallpaper in the Collection of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Design,  Cooper-Hewitt Museum. New York, 1981

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Taylor, Clare. 2014. ‘“Painted Papers of Pekin" The Taste for Eighteenth-Century Chinese Papers in Britain 1918-1945’. In The Reception of Chinese Art Across Cultures. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

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Taylor, Clare. 2018. The Design, Production and Reception of Eighteenth-Century Wallpaper in Britain. Routledge. READ OUR REVIEW

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Teynac, L., et al, Wallpaper: a History, Thames and Hudson, 1982

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Thibaut-Pomerantz, C., Wallpaper: a History of Style and Trends, Flammarion, 2009 READ OUR REVIEW

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Turner, M. et al, A Popular Art: British Wallpapers 1930–1960, Middlesex Polytechnic,1989 ON SALE IN OUR ONLINE SHOP​

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Van Bos, M., I. Vanden Berghe, F. Toussaint, and W. Wailliez. 2015. ‘Technological Complexity versus Commercial Aspects: Study of an Imitation Gilt Leather Wallpaper Catalogue from the Manufacturer Paul Balin (Paris, 1863–1898)’. Journal of the Institute of Conservation 38 (1): 27–40. https://doi.org/10.1080/19455224.2014.999003

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Velut, C., Murs de Papier 1798–1805, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 2018

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Ward, G.W,. Wall paper, its origin, development and manufacture, Pitman, 1922​​

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Woods, Christine. 1999. ‘“An Object Lesson to a Philistine Age”: The Wall Paper Manufacturers’ Museum and the Formation of the National Collections’. Journal of Design History 12 (2): 159–71.

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