Victorians Undone : Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum Hardback
by KATHRYN HUGHES
Hardback
Description
'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 BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE 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.
Information
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Item not Available
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:432 pages
- Publisher:HarperCollins Publishers
- Publication Date:26/01/2017
- Category:
- ISBN:9780007548361
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Information
-
Item not Available
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:432 pages
- Publisher:HarperCollins Publishers
- Publication Date:26/01/2017
- Category:
- ISBN:9780007548361