Description
Book SynopsisA smart, provocative account of the erotic current running just beneath the surface of a stuffy and stifling Victorian London.
Trade Review"
Pleasure Bound shines a sensitive light into the darker corners of Victorian sexuality. The sometimes subtle, sometimes consuming interplay of sensuality and death; the danger and draw of sexual transgression; the irresistible lure of forbidden pleasure--through their erotic longings and adventures, the Victorian sex rebels lead us to the heart of a struggle for authentic sexual expression in an era of repression now past. Or is it?" -- Patricia Anderson, Ph.D., author of When Passion Reigned: Sex and the Victorians
"
Pleasure Bound is a lively, readable and informative survey of the sometimes surprising connections between art, literature, and the sexual underworld in Victorian England." -- David Lodge, author of Deaf Sentence
"As seductive as a Swinburne sapphic,
Pleasure Bound is for the casual reader, the aesthete and the pleasure seeker alike. If there wasn't a scholarly excuse for reading it, you'd feel guilty for having so much fun. Just don't leave it lying around." -- Wesley Stace, author of Misfortune
"Using a deft combination of biography, aesthetic analysis, and cultural commentary,
Pleasure Bound offers a history of those Victorian writers and artists who lived—and sometimes died—for the conjoined cause of eros and art. The result is a bawdy, intricate, edifying, and sometimes heartbreaking book that sheds light on a fascinating constellation of creators, without ever losing sight of the importance of keeping—as Lutz sagely puts it -- 'the dark core dark.'" -- Maggie Nelson, author of The Art of Cruelty
"A delightful spree through Victorian England's red-light district, Deborah Lutz's
Pleasure Bound explores in lucid and engaging prose the pornographic underpinnings of nineteenth-century British art, poetry, and anthropology." -- Matthew Kaiser, Harvard University
"It is unusual to find a history of sex that is both readable and erudite. Deborah Lutz’s
Pleasure Bound is a delightful romp between the legs—and elsewhere—of Victorian England that offers a deeply penetrating gaze into its sexual subjects." -- Frederick S. Roden, author of Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Religious Culture
"A polished, thought-provoking, and original work of history that possesses all the finesse of literature." -- Simon Van Booy, author of The Secret Lives of People in Love
