This enlightening narrative takes a look at the wedding night-its origins, history, customs, cultural expressions, and fictional representations through the ages.

Though just outside of public view, the wedding night is loaded with expectation and consequence. The Wedding Night: A Popular History is an entertaining, accessible, touching, and humorous volume that looks at the previously unexplored topic of wedding history "between the sheets." Covering a kaleidoscopic array of cultural expressions, this unique study zooms in on what's quintessential and shares insights into the history of intimacy through the ages.

The book traces the formalization of the wedding night in the ancient Near East and classical world, provides many examples of historically significant unions in European and American history, and describes the lively variety of traditions leading up to the present. Spicing their narrative with many piquant quotes from contemporary sources, the authors explore the rich cultural context for the wedding night-processions, royal rituals, apparel, food-related traditions, and pranks-throughout Europe and America in the 19th and 20th centuries. Separate chapters examine sex guides, jokes, and the bed as a special conjugal space.

Jane Merrill is a freelance writer who has published articles in 50 magazines and written books on popular culture, self-help, and child-rearing.

Chris Filstrup is a librarian at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, and the author of China, from Emperors to Communes and Beadazzled-The Story of Beads.