Life Like Dolls: The Collector Doll Phenomenon and the Lives of the Women Who Love Them

By A.F. Robertson

Since the 1980s there has been a growing billion dollar business producing porcelain collectible dolls. Avertised in Sunday newspapers and mailbox fliers, even Marie Osmond, an avid collector herself, is now promoting her own line of dolls on the Home Shopping Network and sales are soaring. With average price tags of $100 -- and $500 or more for a handcrafted or limited edition doll -- these dolls strike a chord in the hearts of middle-aged and older women, their core buyers, some of whom create nurseries devoted to collections that number in the hundreds.

Each doll has its own name, identity and adoption certificate, like Shawna, who has just learned to stack blocks all by herself, and Bobby, whose brown, handset eyes shine with mischief and little-boy plans. Exploring the nexus of emotions, consumption and commodification they represent, A. F. Robertson tracks the rise of the porcelain collectible market; interviews the women themselves; and visits their clubs, fairs and homes to understand what makes the dolls so irresistible.

Lifelike but freakish; novelties that profess to be antiques; pricey kitsch: These dolls are the product of powerful emotions and big business. Life Like Dolls pursues why middle-class, educated women obsessively collect these dolls and what this phenomenon says about our culture.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415944511
• ISBN13: 9780415944519
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Fascinating study of an overlooked group

This book occupies a strange position between popular nonfiction and academic writing: It's a well-researched, careful study of porcelain collectors' dolls and the women who collect them, but it's written in a way that is very personal and immediate. It caused me to look at my own collecting behaviors in a new way. The conclusion could reach further, but otherwise I found the entire book surprisingly fascinating. If you're interested in anthropological research, women's studies, consumerism, toys, dolls, human evolution, geriatrics, family studies, or art, then consider this book. It will start you thinking, and you'll never flip past the doll ads in magazines again without taking a close look.