Watching Hannah: Sexuality, Horror and Bodily De-Formation in Victorian England

by Reay, Barry

First Edition

Price: $14.00
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Book desription: London: Reaktion Books, 2002. First Edition. Hard Cover. New/New. Photographs and Drawings. This book describes and sets into context the obsession of a Victorian gentleman and civil servant, Arthur Munby (1828-1910), with the bodies of working-class and disfigured women. It was a fascination that led to his eventual secret marriage to the maidservant Hannah Cullwick - a relationship grounded in a complex interweaving of class, gender and racial hierarchies. Although the story of Munby's obsessions has been told before, Barry Reay provides a totally new approach, drawing on a vast archive of letters, photographs, poems and sketches. His book details Munby's fixation with female bodies, in particular with the daily disruptions of Victorian male ideals of femininity through bodily exertion, dirt and deformity. However, Watching Hannah is far more than an account of a fetishist of hard-working female hands. Reay unpacks one man's fantasies to reveal wider male preoccupations with femininity, the body, deformity, masculinity, and - most of all - sexuality during a pivotal point in European history. 200 pages, including references and an index. Bound in black cloth with 95 illustrations. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.

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