Pleasure Bound: Victorian Sex Rebels and the New Eroticism

by Deborah Lutz (Editor)

A smart, provocative account of the erotic current running just beneath the surface of a stuffy and stifling Victorian London.

At the height of the Victorian era, a daring group of artists and thinkers defied the reigning obsession with propriety, testing the boundaries of sexual decorum in their lives and in their work. Dante Gabriel Rossetti exhumed his dead wife to pry his only copy of a manuscript of his poems from her coffin. Legendary explorer Richard Burton wrote how-to manuals on sex positions and livened up the drawing room with stories of eroticism in the Middle East. Algernon Charles Swinburne visited flagellation brothels and wrote pornography amid his poetry. By embracing and exploring the taboo, these iconoclasts produced some of the most captivating art, literature, and ideas of their day.

As thought-provoking as it is electric, Pleasure Bound unearths the desires of the men and women who challenged buttoned-up Victorian mores to promote erotic freedom. These bohemians formed two loosely overlapping societies—the Cannibal Club and the Aesthetes—to explore their fascinations with sexual taboo, from homosexuality to the eroticization of death. Known as much for their flamboyant personal lives as for their controversial masterpieces, they created a scandal-provoking counterculture that paved the way for such later figures as Gustav Klimt, Virginia Woolf, and Jean Genet.

In this stunning exposé of the Victorian London we thought we knew, Deborah Lutz takes us beyond the eyebrow-raising practices of these sex rebels, revealing how they uncovered troubles that ran beneath the surface of the larger social fabric: the struggle for women’s emancipation, the dissolution of formal religions, and the pressing need for new forms of sexual expression. 8 pages four-color and 5 black-and-white illustrations

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Victorian, Sexuality, Art, Historical, Erotica

331 pages, Hardcover

First published January 5, 2011

About the author

Deborah Lutz is the Thruston B. Morton Endowed Chair of English at the University of Louisville. She has published four books, most recently The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects and Relics of Death in Victorian Literature and Culture. She is the editor of the Norton Critical Editions of Jane Eyre and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and the recipient of an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.

Reviews

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Since I am going to be the first person to review this book, I’ll try to make it good for those of you who are considering picking it up. I ordered it on amazon on a splurge because I knew if I didn’t buy it I would never get to read it (my library is prudish in their selection). When it arrived, I must admit I was a little disappointed. It is a small, rather short book (283 pages of text), and being as interested as I am in the subject matter, I was in the mindset of “the longer the better.” This being said, however, as I started reading it I came to see that the scope of information is vast. After having finished it, I realize that Lutz’s writing is concise, making it shorter but still a wonderful, fascinating read. Her style is not stark, it is extremely colorful. It evokes the times, places, and subject matters in a way that is engaging to read. I don’t regret purchasing it at all.


The book’s subtitle, “Victorian Sex Rebels and the New Eroticism,” is accurate, because that is precisely what it is about. (This may seem like a given, but in my experience it, unfortunately, is not). It focuses on the lives and works of some of the 19th century’s legendary creative minds. Especial attention is given to poet/painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, poet Algernon Swinburne, and the early adventurer/anthropologist/author Richard Burton. Their interrelationships, fueled by communal creativity, are examined. Many other figures, some still known and others whose lives and works have become obscure over time , are discussed as well (Christina Rossetti, William Morris, Oscar Wilde, and others). Themes such as erotic melancholy (sex and its association with death in their works), erotic faith (philosophies on religion, or lack thereof, and sexuality), the appeal of androgyny and gender bending, the process of making the study of sex a science, the creation and dissemination of pornography made difficult and dangerous by obscenity laws as well as many other subcategories are examined.


The progressive views of sexuality that were held by the men and women Lutz examines are shown in the context of their lives, works, and relationships with one another. Two progressive groups with a sexual bent, the Cannibal Club and the Aesthetes, make for interesting reading. The members of these clubs would get together and exchange philosophies regarding the sexual boundaries that made up Victorian society and how they wanted to change them and break away from them. Often being charged with obscenity for their works and unconventional sex lives, these people were trail blazers who lived in the margins of society rather than being caged within it.

[Sasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written, fun story about this one little clique of English libertines - Dante Gabriel Rosetti, Charles Swinburne, Richard Burton and a cast of supporting characters - who remind me that there have always been radicals.

From this Salon interview, some stuff I didn't know:

"Something like 50 percent of the pornography of the time was flagellation pornography. There are lots of different theories about that. One is that these gentlemen who went to private schools like Eton were whipped for punishment as kids. If they did something wrong they would be publicly birched -- a collection of birch branches tied together would be used. The boy's pants would be taken down and he'd be bent over this special block and it would be public. Any schoolboys who wanted to could come and watch. For many of these boys, of course, it was traumatic, but for other boys it's an erotic experience. It developed into this masochistic eroticism.

"Another aspect is that middle-class and upper-class men were expected to be very controlled -- to control their emotions, their servants and their women -- and women were expected to be submissive. So I think a lot of men found themselves wanting to lose control, wanting to be the one who was controlled."

Interesting, right? Not that there's a shortage of bondage porn nowadays (or that's what I've heard from, y'know, other people), but it's not 50%. Weird-ass old Brits.

[Alexis Hall]

Unlike the Dangerous Lover, this seems to be a more self-consciously accessible piece of writing (no Heidegger to be seen) which means it's kind of got the neither fish nor fowl thing of being neither usefully academic or quite as salacious as one would like for a book called 'Victorian Sex Rebels.'

In practice, Victorian Sex Rebels are always the same group of arty perverts: Swinburne, Burton, Rossetti, Wilde etc. And there's such a body of writing about them already, it all feels a little stale and familiar. Though one never gets tired of reading about an inebriated Swinburne (who was tiny and ginger, btw) sliding naked down banisters.

Also it's kind of a sausage party.

Were the Victorian sex rebels really all men? Not a single lesbian in Victorian England? Come on.

Also I'm not sure there isn't an inherent contradiction in the central thesis which is that Lutz insists that Victorian England HAD ALL THE REPRESSION ALL THE TIME while simultaneously contriving to write an entire book about Victorian shagging.

[Edward Champion · Rating 3 out of 5]

This brisk and often enjoyable volume contains a lot of naughty details about Swinburne (I mean, I knew, but I didn't KNOW, if you know what I mean), Richard Burton, and numerous other Victorian artists who were obsessed with sex. But it doesn't make an especially strong case for these artists as leaders of a "new movement." And the limited focus reduces Lutz's decent scholarship9 to something a bit more tawdry. Enjoyably tawdry, to be sure. But I was hoping for a more "thought leader" approach to this subject. After all, every liberation movement needs someone at the forefront, yes?

[York · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent enough book, even if I think the writing got florid--the first chapter is especially rough and almost put me off entirely. However, there was an enjoyable listing of your Victorian pornographic types, and it did make me want to read more old pornography, so I can't fault it too much.

[David Schwan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this because of its coverage of the Pre-Raphelite Brotherhood (PRB). This book goes into some of the history of the PRB and also talks about Sir Richard Burton and others who expanded the frontiers of sexuality in Victorian London. Many of the paintings of the PRB carried sexual undertones and this book explains the sexual themes depicted and describes the lives of those who made the paintings.

The sections dealing with Sir Richard Burton presented both he and his wife in a different light. From reading a previous biography of Burton I was left with the impression that Mrs. Burton was a typically Victorian prudish lady, a view that apparently is not true. Mrs. Burton was an active editor of many of his books, later upon her husbands death she burned manuscripts dealing explicitly with homosexuality which she viewed as too controversial to be published.

The author provides some insights about classic British boarding schools and the sexuality of the times.

Overall an interesting book, a bit slow to read in places but still worth the read.

[Tori · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting topic, terrible writing. This book read as if it were Lutz's barely-passing graduate thesis. It was riddled with difficult to read and strange grammar non-conventions. (My personal favorite, referring to all characters by all of their names: eg. to Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Rossetti, Gabriel, and Dante, often on the same page). The book is also missing a point. I'm still not really sure what she was trying to prove; it was more of an account of how several artists lived. She definitely could have used an outline. I only kept reading because I wanted to see how the people she discussed contributed to later society, but that was totally missing.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was fun! deborah lutz mentions in her postscript for the book that she wanted to “slip into disguise and stroll down a victorian london street at night” after she finished compiling stories for this book, and like, same, but i also now want to learn everything i can about the arts & crafts movement

[Sydni · Rating 5 out of 5]

when I grow up I want to be a victorian sex rebel

[Tim Pendry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lutz produces what amounts to an extended essay, a rumination almost, in nine interconnected chapters on the development of attitudes to sexuality amongst the rebel intelligensia of the British Victorian era.

There are other fuller accounts of the history of British sexuality to be found but this book has the virtue of readability and 'suggestiveness'. Lutz is not trying to push some agenda or thesis but lets the people she studies speak for themselves and us to draw our own conclusions.

She majors on two strong male figures - Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Richard Burton - with the camp flagellant poet Algernon Swinburne acting as a loose hinge between the two worlds they represent.

Using Rossetti and his circle as starting point, she gives us a flavour of the emotional and often unstable but fruitful exploration of heterosexuality which morphed into an increasing open-ness of soul to create a window for homosexuality in due course.

The Pre-Raphaelites became the Aesthetes. Arts & Crafts and then the Decadents. It is no surprise to see their free-thinking challenge (which often merged with political and social radicalism) eventually helping to trigger the reaction that we wrongly associate with the Victorian era.

There is a Foucauldian aspect to Lutz's analysis (although she name checks him only once), above all the process of shifting culture from a free-ranging if secretive sexuality without naming to the naming, partially medicalised, of sexual behaviours and thence to identity politics.

Lutz writes from New York (Norton must be congratulated on the high standard of bookmanship as publishers) so the origins of identity politics (which I happen to consider the most malign of Western liberal ideologies) are very relevant to the construction of the modern American.

To trace identity politics in its initial gay form (feminism, of course represents another story) to Edward Carpenter and the socialist circle around him reminds us what a neglected figure he can be, a bridge between Morris' romantic socialism and homosexual self-identification.

This story, of course, ends with the brutal repression of open homosexual expression in the destruction not only of Oscar Wilde but of the painter Simeon Solomon, a Jewish gay and so doubly an outsider, most of whose works were subsequently destroyed in disgust.

The sexual dark ages (which should be considered to be a later phenomenon stretching from war time in around 1916 to the 1960s) really start to be constructed around these trials and the evangelical societies seeking to suppress vice but there is a transitional phase.

After all, not covered by Lutz as out of her period, we have the major figure of Crowley to contend with in the first third of the next century who took the idea of the sexual and the foreign as evil and revelled in it to become the 'wickedest man on earth' and be rediscovered in the 1960s.

The link of sexual rebellion to late eighteenth century aristocratic free-thinking sexuality (the world of the Hellfire Club) and to the age of Crowley is beyond the scope of the writer but it is worth bearing in mind - sexual rebellion is an eternal because human beings are sexual creatures.

The second major figure covered in the author's impressionistic yet factual way is that remarkable genius of human observation Richard Burton whose anthropological researches into sexuality are nicely positioned within the Victorian obsession with categorisation and collecting.

Lutz changes our perception of his wife Isabel who was no prude as implied in the tale of his burning Burton's late papers but a canny collaborator equally interested in sexuality, transgression and problems of normality in an abnormally 'pseudo-normal' Victorian society.

Whereas the chapters arising from Rossetti are primarily about the arts (although there are remarkable connections between Rossetti's world and that of Burton), those related largely to Burton are about what might pass for Victorians as 'science' (meaning knowledge).

Just as the freedom agenda of the first group was ultimately to end up with the categorising and miserable dead end of identity politics so it could be argued that the studies of Burton's circles (truly subtle in their way) would lead accidentally to the worst of scientific sexology.

As with Karl Marx and Jesus Christ, it is those who follow you after your death who are likely to have depressed you most if you had remained alive. Isabel destroyed Burton's last papers but not without justification. Burton was closely investigating homosexuality in a very dangerous time.

The move from homosexuality just being something that is done (the doing of sodomy was the crime, not male/male love and affection) to being a category of 'being' is traced in the last half of the book. Identity politics might be seen as a necessary defensive reaction in that context.

The investigation of Burton (there is a fascinating fact or minor insight about sexuality in the Victorian era on virtually every page of this book) leads to an investigation of transgressional writing and pornography which positions it as as much scholarly as prurient.

The pornography of large-scale and initially criminal capitalist enterprise in the second half of the following century is very different from the artisanal and upper middle class pornography of the late nineteenth century.

This latter was more in the tradition of that of the French pre-revolutionary period. Its point was to transgress as much as and possibly more than to titillate. The cat and mouse game between the pornographers, with their upper class patrons, and the authorities remains fascinating.

Although modern identity politics and liberal mores would not appreciate the point, pornography was liberating and progressive as much as it was often (in its transgression) liable to extreme sexploitation and cruelty. The influence of De Sade was important.

Algernon Swinburne enters as a link between the two worlds early on - a paradoxical figure who would be regarded as exhibiting all the characteristics of camp gayness were we to observe him from our point in history yet was strongly anti-homosexual insofar as homosexuals were 'sods'.

His kink was flagellation which has since been dignified with the scientific invention of sado-masochism and been earnestly studied as such. Today it is a distinct sub-culture with complex consensual rules of behaviour but things were curiously different then.

As Lutz points out, beatings were normal in the nineteenth century, notably as discipline under all possible circumstances including education. Flagellation seems to have become sexualised because beatings took place just when young males were becoming sexual in all-male contexts.

This did not mean that flagellation and homosexuality were necessarily linked. Far from it. They were (and are) distinct worlds. Instead, we are presented with a curious 'pleasure' with its own network of participants and an infamous 'fladge' brothel, one of several, called Verbena Lodge.

This 'English vice' of beatings was notorious to foreigners whose tastes were more vanilla and less restricted (Paris was a centre for British pornographic production). Its dominance in not only British but American sexually transgressive culture not coincidentally lasted until the 1960s.

Swinburne's poetry (and the carefully chosen extracts of others in the book) gives some sense of what it felt like to be engaged in sexual transgression and pleasure before either had to be defined, categorised, explained, apologised for or justified (which is the current state of affairs).

The book is a good read and leaves you with an almost dream-like sense of another world whose shadows we can still see in our own. There are insights not only into sexuality but class and politics even if Lutz has neither time nor interest in balancing the story with tales of 'normality'.

It has to be remembered throughout that artists and transgressional members of the upper middle class were always a small minority in a society that can justifiably called (though no less than ours) 'hypocritical' because hypocrisy seems to be the only way we can all get along together in practice.

Nevertheless, these figures were all 'enablers' of change simply by existing. One cannot imagine the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s entirely without Crowley and Crowley is unlikely to have existed without the example of Swinburne. Burton's researches underpin our tolerances today.

Looked at objectively, most people are going to be 'voyeurs' (another distinctive and categorisable sexual practice), timidly preferring others to do their transgressions for them. Authoritarians are always going to try and wipe these transgressors from our view.

The point about transgressors is that, even when they are fundamentally harmless, as Rossetti was, they open doors and through these doors step ever more radical ideas of freedom until eventually the freedom more than shocks society. It has to be regarded as criminal.

For example, the notion of consent is central to our contemporary sexuality but it was not so during this period. There was no truck with slavery, of course, but Sadean impulses existed and class power played its role in permitting freedoms not permitted to the masses.

The most shocking difference would probably have been the acceptance of ephebophilia as normal if not strict paedophilia. It does not need to be said that women have little agency in the story even if there are very strong female figures in Rossetti's circle and, of course, Isabel Burton is a fact.

Transgression requires a very clear idea of what you are transgressing against and why you are doing so. In the end, seen in this light, transgression becomes an existential act where you take responsibility for the consequences - Jean Genet being the notable example.

From this perspective, the Burton circle (notably the Cannibal Club) were extreme existentialists (or would that be narcissists or psychopaths) 'avant la lettre'. They were well aware of the potentially damaging consequences and did it anyway. Rabelais ruled as much as De Sade.

Taking on the social without understanding is like trying make a table without tools. The result will be dysfunctional and rickety. From this perspective, much of Victorian transgression was just hitting out at normality simply to express a different personal reality.

Some were severely damaged by this - Simeon Solomon and Oscar Wilde most notably. Others managed their transgression to become controversial but tolerated figures. Perhaps only Burton seemed to have some sort of philosophy of transgression that might change society.

Social change came any way but it is probable that we (in the West) still have not developed much progress on healthy transgression and freedom. Things have been lost as well as gained over the last 120 years. Foucault had a point.

[Michael Mullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945

I scheduled my reading to coincide with the release of this final book in the trilogy. The release date kept getting pushed off. But it appears to be for a good reason. Toll included a lot of extra content that didn't seem to fit well in the other books but helped bring perspective to the story as a whole. These inline appendices and anecdotes helped me as the reader understand the decision matrices of the combatants.

Throughout this book, it continued to surprise me that despite the lack of resources that the Japanese faced that they continued to focus on the importance of their Honor. This concept in general was not a surprise to me. I continued to be surprised by the scope of their resolution and stark reality of the decisions.

The stark reality of their plight is contrasted by the sheer mass of men and material at the disposal of the commanders of the Pacific. Toll recounts in detail the number of ships and planes that the Japanese were facing. The end was certain, the question was at what cost. The deployment of nuclear arms and the resolution to use them ended the war. I appreciated Toll's outline of the commander's mental state before choosing to use "The Bomb." The commanders in the Pacific were truly god's in their own time. With the power of life and death of thousands of people. I for one am grateful that such a power has not been used since then.

Personal note: One aspect of this period of the war for which I was nearly completely ignorant was the battle for Manilla. I was aware of the atrocities in general across the Japanese Empire, specifically the Nanking Massacre in 1937. What I was not aware of was the Manila Massacre. I found the recount of the acts by the Japanese soldiers repulsive and dehumanizing. I was incensed that depraved human beings would steep to such acts any upon any individual but they did not end there the extended their reign of terror, death, and rape to the entire citizenry. After reading through this, and recounting over and over the atrocities that were committed. It was an easy concept to consider wiping out entire cities of the Japanese. At this juncture Toll recounted one event that brought forth the beauty of humanity. At one church where the atrocities, that I will not recount here, were committed and people were left to die, a priest crawled across the floor giving the last rites to his partitioners. As he did so, he heard some individual of his flock praying for the souls of those who had committed such crimes against them. This arrested my anger and brought some very needed perspective.

Going through this experience brought forth some of the interesting effects that we as humans go through and that I head read about repeatedly through history. The generalization of specific actions by specific individuals to an entire people group. By simply reading the acts of these individual Japanese soldiers, granted several thousand of them, I was willing to pass judgment on their entire people group and condemn them to death by nuclear holocaust. The parishioner on the other hand saw them as individuals worthy of redemption and life. I was not willing to extend this chance to millions of people who although indirectly supported the war effort had not directly interacted in those acts. Sobering thoughts.

May I see the humanity in the midst of death a issue justice to all people.

[Katharine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't decide whether to give this book three stars or four. Overall, I really enjoyed it, and I think Lutz's work is very accessible and well-written.

I did prefer the first third of the book that focused more on the Pre-Raphaelites, titled "Pleasures Taken". I was intrigued by the sections on Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal, and Jane Morris. I would love to learn more about Rossetti and her poetry (I've never read Goblin Market), Siddal's art (which I've studied briefly in class), and Morris's persona. Lutz raises the interesting question as to whether Jane Morris is an original or copy: did Pre-Raphaelite artists create paintings based on Morris's aesthetic (she made her own gowns and jewelry and carefully self-fashioned an image that was different to other Victorian women), or did Morris create this image in an attempt to emulate Pre-Raphaelite paintings? Essentially, what role she did play in helping shape Pre-Raphaelite art?

I also liked Lutz's discussion of erotic melancholia and the sensuality surrounding death, although I'm unsure of her reading as Millais' Ophelia as an "orgasmic death". What I was not as fond of was the latter chapters that focused heavily on flagellation and Algernon Swinburne (I get it, the Victorians had a fetish for it, I think a few pages would have sufficed), and on Richard Burton. So much of the book was devoted to Burton, his relationship with his wife, his travels, his views on sexuality, and his translations and books, and I wish I had learned more about the Pre-Raphaelites. I was happy that Lutz wove Oscar Wilde into the discussion, but she didn't really provide any new information about him.

A few more side comments ... I thought it was strange that Lutz referenced each of the figures she discussed by their nicknames - Jane Morris, for example, was referred to as "Janey" - is this a common practice for literary historians? Also, Dante Gabriel Rossetti seems like a real piece of work. Who knew that William Morris was such a great guy in contrast?

In all seriousness, though, I think this book is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the erotica of the Victorian era or the lives and exploits of the Pre-Raphaelites.

[Dixie Normous · Rating 5 out of 5]

If anyone asked me why I came up with long, formal sounding, obscurely intent names for blogs, then BUSTED...I got the idea directly from this book.

The social norms, and social etiquette in Victorian Europe, England in particular, put significant rules around sex, and sexualized behaviors. And, as with any environment where you tell a whole lot of people not to do something, nearly any way around these rules so people could get it on were employed.

erotic writings, images, having a club with meetings to share and discuss all this were outlawed. Yes, not long after printing press got invented, the night shift left unattended with it, who could not but help put ink to paper with a good ol' "hot for teacher" story they have stuck in their head.

Anywho...camoflauge allows many species to survive, hence English social clubs with names frequently starting with "the society of", then usually some scientific or exploration words attached, which is what I found interesting.

[Victor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a lot of new or different information inside, but a definitely interesting perspective and focus. A well written fast read on the subject with an up to date take on the material covered, but not much new for anyone familiar with the principals covered, all of whom have had great books written about them: the Rosetti siblings, Richard and Isabelle Burton, Swinburne, Wilde, and Harold Ashbee. The material on Simeon Solomon was great but far too sparse (I think literally everything in the book is covered in the Wikipedia article on him), and Lutz never even mentions his occasional writings, just his much more well known paintings, which basically shows the limitations of the book. A solid enough introduction to the subject of alternative sexualities of the well known during the mid-to-late Victorian era.

[Helen Victoria Murray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked up for pleasure, but actually turned out to be really useful for my research, especially Chapter One, 'Erotic Melancholia', which talks in a very interesting way about the enduring image of Elizabeth Siddal. While this book is bound up in Victorian eroticism and the pioneers of sexual pleasure in the nineteenth century, I also found it valuable for its exploration of the interconnecting circles of letters, friendships and collaborations between the aesthetes and decadents of the mid- to late-nineteenth century. Elucidates the place of the Pre-Raphaelites amongst the different movements and developments in art, literature and criticism.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not the book I was expecting, but it ended up being the one I wanted to read. Instead of being an overarching history of sexual mores in Victorian England, it's moreso a microhistory about a group of artists and writers who eschewed contemporary values, who obsessed over eroticism. Despite the focus being less on overall ideals, you get the distinct sense of the edges of acceptability--that thin line between being a hedonistic eccentric allowed success or being an unredeemable outcast who is turned away by all polite members of society.

[Taz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a big fan of Lutz's book on the "dangerous lover" and, as an even bigger fan of the Victorian era, I was so excited to read this. Unfortunately, this was kind of a confusing, badly organized read, and although I did get a lot of semi-valuable insight into the Victorian mindset, I was befuddled more than I was titillated or informed.

[Brittney Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think a lot of the information presented within the book is really fascinating and a good entry into any of the individuals mentioned lives, but the arguments the author was making didn't always land for me or felt random and haphazard at best, but in all, a good read.

[Drianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this look at various people (pre-Raphaelites, Swinburne, Simeon Soloman, Burton et al.) who challenged and changed Victorian notions of the acceptable.

[Geof Sage · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 rounded down. It's wrong to call this book sexy, but there are a few parts that feel sensual. Also there's several parts that feel repetitive.

[Jillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It lost a bit of its steam at the end, but it was still a really great read. Very informative.

[Deni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite finished yet. Just wanted to say that my favorite person in this book (so far) has to be William Morris:

"Making things among and with friends--with its sensuality, sympathy, and openhandedness--fueled Morris's growing socialism. Through handwork, he began to see that the vast majority of the people of England toiled at ugly and repetitive jobs that didn't utilize their best selves: their higher mind or their creative impulses. They made objects for others to use, and the objects themselves were often unshapely and truly unneeded, merely symbols of status. What if the simple work of making household wares could call on the creative mind, on carefully developed craft skills? And then what if the people who made these beautiful items of everyday use got to keep and appreciate them themselves? He imagined a world enlightened by 'art made by the people and for the people, a joy to the maker and the user.' Tight bourgeois houses could open up into free communities of non-possessiveness. Morris's bringing together of design and radical social ideas marked the beginning of the Arts and Crafts movement with its antimachine and pro-workingman aesthetic." p. 168-169.

Overall, it's enjoyable and fascinating read. I'm loving the discussion/explanation of artistic collaboration and evolution of ideas. Second favorite person (so far) is Richard Burton.

UPDATE: Finally finished it. My only real complaint is that it's frustrating to read about a painting in great detail but have to scurry to Google image search to see it. She did include a few in a color insert but it would have been nice to have them all handy.

[Karen Ireland-Phillips · Rating 3 out of 5]

One recalls Victorians as people who covered the legs of pianos to avoid sexual allusions.. But Deborah Lutz “. . . took a somewhat divergent stance, one attuned to this culture as not so much ‘more repressed’ than ours, but as profoundly different from it.”[return]I don’t believe she succeeded here. Yes, the Victorians were profoundly different to some extent. But the mores of the era reverberate today, in art, literature, religion and public attitude. [return]This isn’t a 101 book. The author jumps into a description of the life of Gabrielle Rossetti, casting it in a fictional tone. The first part of the book devolved (for me, ymmv) into an alphabet soup of Important Victorian Characters, most of whom I was only glancingly familiar with and some I’d never heard of. It took a while to sort them all out. [return]The author’s contention that the collaboration of these people – Rossetti, William Morris, and explorer Richard Burton, among others – created an atmosphere that eventually became the underpinnings of the gay rights movement is marginally persuasive. Sexual behavior that we think of as “liberated” were, as Lutz tells us, all there in Victorian London. They were just an open secret. And sometimes prosecutable at law, depending upon your politics and patrons. [return]Overall, the writing was not as smooth as I would hope, and Ms. Lutz handles the conflict between thematic narrative and temporal narrative by ignoring it, to the detriment of her work. But there is much to take away from this exploration of Victorian sexuality and the arts.

[Leslie Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

The manuscript I am working on now has a character who is very much into classical studies, and then he moves into a Victorian-era apartment building which may or may not have been used previously as a brothel. Let's just say I read PLEASURE BOUND as a way to "get in character" and do a little reasearch to round out some of the characterizations and "work" of this classic studies scholar.

But you probably don't care about all of that.

PLEASURE BOUND is a conglomeration of several different Victorian artists, poets, writers, and well men of the time including Oscar Wilde, Richard Burton, Dante Gabrielle Rossetti, etc. and almost follows the life of Rossetti through his art, as if we are a fly on his lapel. I found Lutz's writing great at times, engaging almost as if reading a novel, and then sort of "purple-prose-y" to downright bad at times (referring to Dante by his first name and then later just by Rossetti at other times on the same page). Maybe this won't bother you, but I found it a tiny bit confusing...wondering if we were talking about Victorian-era Dante, or the more ancient poet Dante (Rossetti was named after the poet Dante because his father was particulary fond of his work).

Still, there were some great passages and some equally good descriptions, education, too. Bear in mind that this is not an exhaustive history (what is?) but a great survey of how Victorian art was presented along with the Victorian fascination with death and sex. But, shhh...we won't tell Queen Mum.

[Kathy Leland · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rather fascinating book, especially for those interested in the Pre-Raphaelites: reading about artists like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, and Holman Hunt and their experiments in living and art reminded me that these uprght Victorians were actually the first real hippies, advocates of free love, communal living, art for art's sake, and a sense that all objects can be both useful and beautiful. I also have a life-long crush on Sir Richard Francis Burton, who figures prominently in this book. He was a truly amazing personality, a scholar whose defiance of social conventions and intense curiosity about foreign cultures (including their sexual practices) remains unmatched, even in our own century. These industrious Victorian gentlemen who wrote constantly and produced huge bodies of work never cease to amaze me -- when did they sleep? How did someone like Burton even have time to also learn Arabic, be the first white man to enter into the holy city of Mecca, embark on a dangerous trip seeking to discover the source of the Nile River AND translate thousands of pages of "Tales of the Arabian Nights"? There just aren't people like this walking the earth any longer!

This book IS also about sex, of course, and the Victorian fascination with pornography, but it's also about people who were pioneers in the way they viewed the world and lived their lives. I am definitely going to look up this author's other works.

[Julai · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book didn't exactly smash open any new avenues of thought--while an interesting premise, it seems as though the author either stretched a very interesting essay or condensed a very boring thesis, creating this work focused on the Aesthetic and Cannibal groups of the Victorian era. Spoiler: Dudes who get bored with the current socially accepted mores tend to flirt with homosexuality. See: late 90s outbreaks of "bisexuality." The chapter on Christina Rosetti was enlightening, as was the information on Richard Burton, but I didn't learn anything new about Oscar Wilde. For some real sexual movers and shakers, read something about Natalie Barney's lesbian literary group in Paris, which included Dolly Wilde, Oscar's niece. She used to enjoy dressing up as him for parties. That's drag before drag existed, baby.

[The Book : An Online Review at The New Republic]

WHEN “Walter,” the anonymous author of the encyclopedic and pornographic Victorian memoir My Secret Life, propositioned a passing woman with the offer of a shilling, he tells us that within “half a minute,” he had his “hand between her thighs.” Would she go further, he wondered? “‘Too glad,’ said she…. We went still further off, and found a vacant seat near an out of the way walk…. I sat down, and turning her back towards me, she pulled up her petticoats….”Read more...

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easily read book on Victorian era artists and poets who did not fall into the deep repression of various urges and defied the law and social mores. Among these artists were the Rossettis, Richard Burton (the explorer not Liz Taylor's twice husband), Oscar Wilde,Algernon Swinburne, and others. These individuals formed clubs, if you will,that tended toward Hedonism. They wrote, portrayed and collected pornographic works as well as translated the works of other cultures and times. This book highlights a side to the Victorians that the strait-laced wanted to suppress.

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very enjoyable read by someone who both respects and likes these people and their work. I could wish for more focus on the women (seriously, why has Hollywood not made a sexy biopic about Robert and Isabel Burton? Or a wacky buddy-comedy about Christina Rossetti's unlikely friendship with Algernon Swinburne?), but it's not like they're forgotten in the text, merely overshadowed by their flamboyant artist/author friends and their hijinks. And you must admit, those Pre-Raphaelites and their circle got up to some serious hijinks.

[Amy Wilks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since this is a new book, and my post-op 'lying in' is over, I just didn't have time to read it all before it was due back to the library (no renewal because of many holds). I got through about two-thirds of it so far, and I look forward to reading the rest. The book deals with a fairly short period of Victorian history and a core group of "sex rebels", and I admit that I was expecting more variety. That said, I will finish this review once I get the book back. :)