"We knew very little about the sex lives of Victorians until this book. A gap has been filled - amazingly after so long -and with a wealth of detail and circumstance. Much of nineteenth-century fiction is suddenly shown up as the wishful thinking of moralists and, to say the least, as telling less than the truth. I was moved and outraged, angered and amused, from first to last fascinated." -- RUTH RENDELL
Francoise Barret-Ducrocq holds a doctoral d'Etat in British history and cultural studies, and is a senior lecturer at the University of Paris VII. Her most recent book in France is Une sainte violence: Pauvrete, charite et morale a Londres au XIXe siècle.
We knew very little about the sex lives of Victorians until this
book. A gap has been filled - amazingly after so long -and with a
wealth of detail and circumstance. Much of nineteenth-century
fiction is suddenly shown up as the wishful thinking of moralists
and, to say the least, as telling less than the truth. I was moved
and outraged, angered and amused, from first to last
fascinated.
*Ruth Rendell*
To the shadowy, faceless victims of traditional histories
Barret-Ducrocq gives back the full dimensions of their humanity,
and all the complexity of their motives and decisions. Her book
ranks among the most innovative developments in both social history
and women's history.
*Jacques Ranciere, University of Paris VIII*
Françoise Barret-Ducrocq reconstructs the world of the poor in
Victorian London with extraordinary care and sympathy. Both women
and men speak eloquently of their fears, hopes and ambitions. We
find no victims or heroines here, but instead the many survivors of
a harsh, often indifferent city.
*Martha Vicious, University of Michigan*
An evocative and scholarly exploration of the interior world of
love and desire which confounds the over-simplified reduction of
working-class women to victims or sensual symbols.
*Sheila Rowbotharn*
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