Taking as his point of departure the authors, the audience, and
the texts of Victorian writings on sex in general and of Victorian
pornography in particular, Steven Marcus offers a startling and
revolutionary perspective on the underside of Victorian culture.
The subjects dealt with in "The Other Victorians" are not only
those to have been "shocking" in the Victorian period. The way
these subjects were regarded--and the way our notions of the
Victorians continue to change, as the efforts of contemporary
scholarship restore them to their full historical dimensions--are
matters today of some surprise and wonder.
Making use, for the first time, of the extensive collection of
Victoriana at the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research, Marcus first
examines the writings of Dr. William Acton, who may be said to
represent the "official views" of sexuality held by Victorian
society, and of Henry Spencer Ashbee, the first and most important
bibliographer-scholar of pornography. He then turns to the most
significant work of its kind from the period, the eleven-volume
anonymous autobiography "My Secret Life." There follows an analysis
of four pornographic Victorian novels--an analysis that throws an
oblique but fascinating light on the classics of Victorian
literature--and a review of the odd flood of Victorian publications
devoted to flagellation. The book concludes with a chapter
propounding a general theory of pornography as a sociological
phenomenon.
With the publication of "The Other Victorians," understanding
of this period took a giant stride forward. Most of the writers and
writings discussed by Marcus belong to Victorian sub-literature
rather than to literature proper; in this way the work remains
connected to a consideration of the exotic sub-literature. A
brilliantly written book in its own right, this work transformed
the study of the Victorian period as did no other.
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