For Adults
We’re offering two reading groups 10 proof copies each of Sniff: A History of Smells by William Tullett – a non-fiction exploration of the history of smell across vast periods of time and around the globe. All we ask in return is that you review the book.
To be in with a chance of winning proofs of Sniff: A History of Smells for your reading group, please apply by emailing rachel.hunter@yaleup.co.uk with a short paragraph about why you’re interested in reading and reviewing Sniff.
The deadline for applications is Wednesday 30th June 2026 and proof copies will be sent out by mid-July.
About Sniff
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 perfume, but it also warns us of dangerous fire, gas, and rot.
What did the past smell like? Why does our own world smell the way it does?
Moving through key locations, from libraries to forests, churches to hospitals, Will Tullett explores the peculiar history of smell. We smell witchcraft and murder, fin de siècle Parisian theatres, and cinemas in 1960s New York. What emerges is not just a history of smells, but biographies of the many noses that have sniffed them.
About the author
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.
Follow Will on Instagram @ williamtullett
