Using firsthand documents uncovered in the archives of a London foundling hospital, Barret-Ducrocq offers a marvelously acute census of Victorian sexual and moral attitudes.
By:
Francoise Barret-Ducrocq
Translated by:
John Howe
Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 183mm,
Width: 112mm,
Spine: 13mm
Weight: 172g
ISBN: 9780140173260
ISBN 10: 0140173269
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 01 December 1992
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
"Part 1 Labouring classes, depraved classes: the setting; a vast hothouse of sexual immorality - the signs of immorality, use of the streets, places of amusement, living conditions - one-room dwellings and sexual licence; characters in the family drama, the head of the family, children, young people, women; the natural history of transgressions - profligacy, the reign of the impure, animality. Part 2 The foundling hospital. Part 3 Love and marriage: ""My vile seducer has been the cause of four other young women's ruin"", casual loves and impossible romances - ""female servants are far from being a virtuous class"", ""nice life this, for a girl of three and twenty, my Kerristian friends""; ""home, sweet home""; temptations and precautions - ""as I was going to Chelsea one day, I met with a pretty girl on the way ..."", courtship; parents and family, friends and workmates, employers, a very discreet courtship, ""there was no courtship or promise of marriage""; ""where they went to I never hear say ... but when she returned, Mrs Gray said she'd very much rumpl'd her muslin ...""; sex before marriage, promises of marriage - ""he promised me marriage, they all do""; love nests, love traps, the question of consent; words of love; ""now lost to all, her friends, her virtue fled ..."", ""he promised to marry her soon, but soon he forgot all about her ..."", posting banns, living in sin, ""before everything went wrong"", abortion attempts, ""I told him at which he seemed frightened"", ""he said he would see me through my trouble""; seduced and abandoned, family and friends, ""no sir, missus don't permit no followers"", ""rules of sexual morality""."