Talking Dirty: A History of Disgust from Jesus Christ to Boris Johnson

by Richard Sugg

Did you know that Shakespeare never used the word 'disgust'? Our modern sense of hygienic disgust was invented only in the eighteenth century - and as part of a newly class conscious world of British snobbery. After countless filthy saints had been deliberately disgusting for centuries, disgust got political. The nineteenth century weaponised disgust against working class demands for the vote or social reform, with 'the Great Unwashed' reviled by right-wing papers in Britain and America. In the twentieth century a new terror of germs and dirt was embodied in the tragic demise of Howard Hughes. And before long more and more affluent people were actively looking for new things by which to be disgusted: from fat, smoking and toilets through to Donald Trump, the most disgusted and most disgusting President in American history. In Britain, Brexit offered the equivalent of Trump's border wall, selling xenophobia and racism to millions. Talking Dirty digs out the origins of the British class system which made this possible: from slave-owners who knocked down country churches and villages, through the invention of toffs, snobs, and posh people, and on to the British fascists marching through the Jewish East End, and Britain's Nazi king, Edward VIII.

Disgust shapes our selves powerfully, at the level of feelings we often dare not talk about. Talking Dirty offers a dark alternative history of everything which makes us human. Plunging into a mucky treasure chest of 45 years of reading and 54 years of living, it is continually thought-provoking, startling and hilarious. It features a vibrant jostling crowd of historic characters, both famous and forgotten, from the filthy James I and revolting Robert Hooke, through disgusting dukes, and on to the court of Mad King George, the gay eccentric William Beckford, Elizur Wright ('a nineteenth century Bill Bryson'), the real life Indiana Jones, Roy Chapman Andrews, Jack London, American panda-hunter Ruth Harkness, Princess Diana, James Bond, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Churchill's Favourite Spy Christine Granville, and modern television adventurer Pat Spain.

ebook

Published January 1, 2023

About the author

I am the author of eleven books, including Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires (Routledge, 2011; 2nd edn 2015; Turkish translation 2018), Fairies: A Dangerous History (Reaktion, 2018) and The Real Vampires (Amberley, 2019). My recent children’s book, Our Week with the Juffle Hunters, is an eco-fable set between the Welsh coast and the North Pole. I have lectured at the universities of Cardiff and Durham.
I am currently completing Talking Dirty: The History of Disgust from Jesus Christ to Donald Trump. My next book will be a groundbreaking study of ghosts and poltergeists, perhaps the strangest open secret of our times. I collect ghost and poltergeist accounts. If anyone has one they wishes to share, please write to me in confidence – richardjsugg@yahoo.co.uk
The new third edition of Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires is not only much cheaper, but substantially updated. Even I was surprised.
I now have the rights to The Smoke of the Soul and have almost completed a new trade version of this book. Please do write if you are interested in that title – it is proving a busy year…
Thanks everyone for reviews and reading. Writing is intrinsically solitary, and this community is a great thing.