Victorians Undone: Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum
On Sale: 01/25/2018
Victorians Undone: Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum
On Sale: 01/25/2018
Format:
About the Book
‘Victorians Undone is the most original history book I have read in a long while’ Daily Mail
A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR • AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR
A groundbreaking account of what it was like to live in a Victorian body from one of our best historians.
Why did the great philosophical novelist George Eliot feel so self-conscious that her right hand was larger than her left?
Exactly what made Darwin grow that iconic beard in 1862, a good five years after his contemporaries had all retired their razors?
Who knew Queen Victoria had a personal hygiene problem as a young woman and the crisis that followed led to a hurried commitment to marry Albert?
What did John Sell Cotman, a handsome drawing room operator who painted some of the most exquisite watercolours the world has ever seen, feel about marrying a woman whose big nose made smart people snigger?
How did a working-class child called Fanny Adams disintegrate into pieces in 1867 before being reassembled into a popular joke, one we still reference today, but would stop, appalled, if we knew its origins?
Kathryn Hughes follows a thickened index finger or deep baritone voice into the realms of social history, medical discourse, aesthetic practise and religious observance – its language is one of admiring glances, cruel sniggers, an implacably turned back. The result is an eye-opening, deeply intelligent, groundbreaking account that brings the Victorians back to life and helps us understand how they lived their lives.
Critical Praise
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Product Details
- ISBN: 9780007548385
- ISBN 10: 0007548389
- Imprint: Fourth Estate
- On Sale: 01/25/2018
- Pages: 432
- List Price:18.99 CAD
- BISAC1 : HISTORY / Social History
- BISAC2 : HISTORY / Modern / 19th Century
- BISAC3 : HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / Victorian Era (1837-1901)
- BISAC4 : SOCIAL SCIENCE / Customs & Traditions
- BISAC5 : BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Historical