The English Vice: Beating, Sex and Shame in Victorian England and After

by Ian Gibson

A serious study of flogging and flagellation in English society by the author of The Assassination of Garcia Lorca and biographer of Dali.

Genres: History, BDSM, Nonfiction, Sexuality

396 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1978

About the author

Ian Gibson (born 21 April 1939) is an Irish author and Hispanist known for his biographies of Antonio Machado, Salvador Dalí, Henry Spencer Ashbee, and particularly his work on Federico García Lorca, for which he won several awards, including the 1989 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography. His work, La represión nacionalista de Granada en 1936 y la muerte de Federico García Lorca (The nationalistic repression of Granada in 1936 and the death of Federico García Lorca) was banned in Spain under Franco.

Born into a Methodist Dublin family, he was educated at Newtown School in Waterford and graduated from Trinity College, Dublin. He became a professor of Spanish literature at Belfast and London universities before moving to Spain. His first novel, Viento del Sur (Wind of the South, 2001), written in Spanish, examines class, religion, family life, and public schools in British society through the fictitious autobiography of a character named John Hill, an English linguist and academic. It won favourable reviews in Spain.

Gibson has also worked in television on projects centering around his scholarly work in Spanish history, having served as a historical consultant and even acting in one historical drama.

He was granted a Spanish passport in 1984.

Reviews

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This academic study was published in the 1970s and looks at the correlation between the Victorian obsession with flagellation and early sexual awakening. If you're looking for titillation, this is not for you. It's a serious book even if it has a slightly 'naughty' theme. Amazing what you find in your local library.

[Francis Jarman · Rating 5 out of 5]

An in-depth study of a weird subject (weird, that is, if you are not personally a flagellomane), Ian Gibson's book is often disgusting and occasionally horrific, but entertaining by way of its rich social and cultural detail and the light that it sheds on the peculiar behaviour of certain in other respects eminent Victorians. Today ("The English Vice" first appeared in 1978) there might be rather less psychoanalytic speculation; otherwise, this is a superb example of how to handle such a topic without being salacious or voyeuristic.