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ToolsHughes, Kathryn (2017) Victorians Undone. 4th Estate, HarperCollins, London. ISBN 9780007548361
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‘Intriguing, gleefully contentious and – appropriately enough – fizzing with life, Victorians Undone is the most original history book I have read in a long while’ John Preston, Daily Mail 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.
| Item Type: | Book |
|---|---|
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing |
| UEA Research Groups: | Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Creative Writing Research Group Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Research Group |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | Pure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 22 Mar 2016 09:49 |
| Last Modified: | 30 Jul 2021 23:34 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/57968 |
| DOI: |
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