|
The Victorian Guide
to Sex* Desire
and Deviance in the 19th Century
Fern Riddell
Barnsley (Yorks): Pen and Sword Books,
2014 Paperback. 144 p. ISBN 978-1781592861.
£12.99
Reviewed
by D.C. Rose
In the half century since Steven Marcus published his
groundbreaking The Other
Victorians : A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in
Mid-Nineteenth-Century England, much has changed in the world of Victorian social
studies. Victorian pornography has not merely been unbanned, but made the
subject of academic study; the on-line discussion group Histsex Network is hosted by
the University of Michigan. What can Fern Riddell, completing her PhD at King’s
College, London but already described by her publisher as a cultural historian,
tell us that we do not yet know? The answer is not very much, unless we accept
Ms Riddell’s premise that we do not know anything, not even how to distinguish
a Victorian Guide to Sex from a Guide to Victorian Sex. It is the latter that is on offer here,
despite the book’s title. Despite its subtitle, too, for ‘Desire and Deviance in the 19th Century’ more resembles that of an
academic work than the main title. Yet scant trace of the doctoral candidate’s
disciplined approach can be discerned. The book is set out in six chapters,
absurdly called volumes, each ‘narrated’ by a different character as if each
was a separate guide to a different sexual practice, published in the
nineteenth century, their names ranging from the pedestrian (‘Dr Dimmick’)
through the arch (‘Lord Arthur Cleveland’) to the ridiculous (‘Lady Petronella
Von-Hathsburg’), all members of ‘the Society for Social Morality’. Were this
merely a jeu d’esprit – a satire on
academic writing – or even a spoof, one might leave it at that (or just
leave it), did not the acknowledgments thank ‘the community of scholars round
the world, who have continually sent me references’. Three of these are named,‘whose help and support were incredible’, a somewhat two-edged commendation. The author, however, takes the work seriously, apparently in the belief that her
thoughts on Victorian sexuality have not been previously formed by other
students of the period.
We are left with only one certainty: this
text will not form Ms Riddell’s doctoral thesis. ____________________ * This is
the title given on the cover, the title page substituting ‘a’ for ‘the’.
Cercles © 2016 All rights are reserved and no reproduction from this site for whatever purpose is permitted without the permission of the copyright owner. Please contact us before using any material on this website.
|
|
|
