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  1. Books
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Victorians Undone : Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum

‘Intriguing, gleefully contentious and – appropriately enough – fizzing with life, Victorians Undone is the most original history book I have read in a long while’ Daily Mail

A SUNDAY TIMES 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.


Author:

  • Kathryn Hughes

Narrator:

  • Jenny Funnell

Format:

  • Audiobook

Duration:

  • 13 h 44 min

Language:

English

Categories:

  • History
  • Great occurrences and events

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  • 6 books

    Kathryn Hughes

    Kathryn Hughes is the prize-winning author of four previous books on Victorian social history, including a biography of Mrs Beeton which was longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize and adapted for the BBC. She regularly writers for the , the and the . Kathryn is currently Professor Emerita at the University of East Anglia, and a Fellow of both the Royal Literary Society and the Royal Historical Society.

    Read more

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