The Literary History of the Sash Window

Abstract

Invented in England in the final decades of the seventeenth century, the sash window quickly replaced the casement window, becoming a defining feature of eighteenth-century English architecture. With its liberal use of expensive panes of glass, its vertical opening system, and its novel rope-and-pulley mechanism, the sash window attracted attention from those interested in scientific advancement, supporters of new English inventions, and those who longed for what was new and fashionable. While architectural historians have long noted the sash window's predominance in English architecture, literary historians and critics have overlooked how the sash window often features as one of the few descriptive details in early modern fiction. After a short history of the sash window, this essay examines the literary significance of the sash window in works ranging from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver Travels and Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy to Samuel Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands and Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey.