Covers the exploits of Mr. Verdant Green, a first year undergraduate at Oxford University.

This book explores students’ consumer practices and material desires in nineteenth-century Oxford. Consumerism surged among undergraduates in the 1830s and decreased by contrast from the 1860s as students learned to practice restraint and make wiser choices, putting a brake on past excessive consumption habits. This study concentrates on the minority of debtors, the daily lives of undergraduates, and their social and economic environment. It scrutinises the variety of goods that were on offer, paying special attention to their social and symbolic uses and meanings. Through emulation and self-display, undergraduate culture impacted the formation of male identities and spending habits. Using Oxford students as a case study, this book opens new pathways in the history of consumption and capitalism, revealing how youth consumer culture intertwined with the rise of competition among tradesmen and university reforms in the 1850s and 1860s.

It was the unmistakable cheery voice of little Mr. Bouncer. He had crossed from his own rooms in the grand old College of Brazenface, Oxford, and had stopped on a certain landing, before a door over which was painted the monosyllable "Green." His battered College cap was on his head, but, as no undergraduate's gown was upon his shoulders, it was to be presumed that the little gentleman had not come from lectures, or returned from a stroll through the streets of Oxford, or from any other place where the wearing of full academical costume would have been demanded by the authorities of the University. Though, if the full costume required by the statutes had been rigorously enforced, Mr. Bouncer would have cheerfully bowed to destiny, and would probably have imitated the gentleman who suspended his pair of bands under his coat tails, because the law had not expressly stated on what part of the body they were to be worn.