Victorians Undone: Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum [electronic resource]
Hughes, Kathryn2017
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‘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.
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Author:
Hughes, Kathryn, authorCloudLibrary
Imprint:
[S.l.] : HarperCollins Publishers, 2017.
Collation:
1 online resource432 p.
Notes:
Electronic book.Electronic reproduction. [S.l.] HarperCollins Publishers 2017 Available via World Wide Web.
System details:
Format: Adobe EPUBRequires: CloudLibrary (file size: 38.6 MB)
ISBN:
9780007548378
Language:
English
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BRN:
3150664