Status Updates From Victorian and Edwardian Fas...

Where’s her Nobel Prize and i’m serious.

Really really excellent read. Author is an incredible writer, witty and interesting, focused on exploring the imperfect realities of life, employs smooth transitions, includes funny quotes in her evidence, gives examples, and is grounded in primary sources. Wonderful analyst. I need to gossip with her. I love that she tested out just how big a crinoline could get. academic autism moment of the century.

This book really does feel old. I didn't realise it was published in the 60s until I added it to my currently Reading but oof, it shows. It's written in a way that makes me have to have two copies open at once when looking at the pictures, and the longer text sections just assume we know so much already and explain basically nothing.

Though informational and thorough, this book has a giant flaw, which is that its layout is neither good for reference nor reading. One must constantly reference three separate section as one reads: the notes on images, the main text, and the images themselves, which are numbered and mentioned wherever relevant on the text. This makes for a harried reading experience and completely useless for research and reference.