Hardcover
A captivating journey through history, exploring the power and mystery of scent.
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Sniff

A History of Smells

$46.80

  • Hardcover

    384 pages

  • Release Date

    28 December 2026

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Summary

A remarkable account of the weird and wonderful history of smell

Across vast periods of time and around the globe, smell has been central to human life. From the incense burned in medieval religious rituals to the use of modern sniffer dogs, smells have been central to our sense of identity, our ability to build communities, and, perhaps less positively, to mark those deemed unwelcome within them. Our sense of smell brings us the pleasure of good food, wine and perfum…

Book Details

ISBN-13:9780300282597
ISBN-10:0300282591
Author:Will Tullett
Publisher:Yale University Press
Imprint:Yale University Press
Format:Hardcover
Number of Pages:384
Release Date:28 December 2026
Weight:454g
Dimensions:24mm x 152mm x 235mm
A-Format
B-Format
C-Format
Sniff by Will Tullett - ISBN: 9780300282597
152 × 235 mm
A4
mm / in
What They're Saying

Critics Review

“I’m with Dr Tullett and his marvellous tome on scents and sensibleness: ‘Open your nose to smell. The more of it we can smell, the more of it we can save.’“—John Lewis-Stempel, Country Life

“Tullett invites us to follow our noses into history, discovering the fascinating stories behind smells past and present. This is a stunning book full of surprises and revelations—and always alive to the politics of scents and stinks across history and today.”—Catherine Clarke, author of A History of England in 25 Poems

“Sniff explores sensory landscapes, evoking newspaper ink, old books, and the chemical tang of new cars. This profound, sweeping history reveals how powerful scents have defined human experiences.”—Emily Cockayne, author of Penning Poison: A History of Anonymous Letters

“A deeply researched, revelatory and hugely entertaining sensory odyssey. Sniff hopscotches nimbly across centuries and continents to take us to some wonderful and terrifying places—ancient Rome, medieval China, the Shakespearian stage, the Victorian city, the trenches of the Great War, a modern funeral home—and reveals the myriad ways that smells evoke danger, pleasure, memories, places, bodies, in fact are the very stuff of life. Brilliant.”—David Hendy, author of Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening

About The Author

Will Tullett

Will Tullett is a senior lecturer in early modern history at the University of York. He is the author of Smell in Eighteenth-Century England: A Social Sense and Smell and the Past: Noses, Archives, Narratives.

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