This classic book on Victorian hypocrisy reveals the other side of Victoria's Britain, and what really went on behind the lace curtains and aspidistras. Ronald Pearsall exposes, with thorough documentation, the bald facts of sex-life (approved and illicit) among the aristocracy, the middle class and poor in the nineteenth century. His curious record is honest, entertaining, and very humorous. It also reflects the conflicting values of the Victorian double standard - one is the very image of respectability, the other is an underground world in which repressions sought their outlet in depravity and licentiousness. In this book Ronald Pearsall introduces the reader to Ruskin and his unconsummated marriage, Swinburne and his predilection for flagellation, the cult of the corset, the flourishing trade in pornography and obscene photographs and orgies that took place under cover at sedate country houses.

Can the orgasm be explained in historical terms? Robert Muchembled's book unearths fascinating sources which suggest that we need to look with a fresh eye at the past and realize that the sublimation of the erotic impulse was far more than simple religious ascetism - it was the hidden driving force of the West until the 1960s.

Nineteenth-century British periodicals for girls and women offer a wealth of material to understand how girls and women fit into their social and cultural worlds, of which music making was an important part. The Girl's Own Paper, first published in 1880, stands out because of its rich musical content. Keeping practical usefulness as a research tool and as a guide to further reading in mind, Judith Barger has catalogued the musical content found in the weekly and later monthly issues during the magazine's first thirty years, in music scores, instalments of serialized fiction about musicians, music-related nonfiction, poetry with a musical title or theme, illustrations depicting music making and replies to musical correspondents. The book's introductory chapter reveals how content in The Girl's Own Paper changed over time to reflect a shift in women's music making from a female accomplishment to an increasingly professional role within the discipline, using 'the piano girl' as a case study. A comparison with musical content found in The Boy's Own Paper over the same time span offers additional insight into musical content chosen for the girls' magazine. A user's guide precedes the chronological annotated catalogue; the indexes that follow reveal the magazine's diversity of approach to the subject of music.