Victorians Undone

<h2>‘Victorians Undone is the most original history book I have read in a long while’ Daily Mail</h2> <p> <strong>A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR • AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR</strong> </p> <p> <strong>A groundbreaking account of what it was like to live in a Victorian body from one of our best historians.</strong> </p> <p>Why did the great philosophical novelist George Eliot feel so self-conscious that her right hand was larger than her left?</p> <p>Exactly what made Darwin grow that iconic beard in 1862 a good five years after his contemporaries had all retired their razors?</p> <p>Who knew Queen Victoria had a personal hygiene problem as a young woman and the crisis that followed led to a hurried commitment to marry Albert?</p> <p>What did John Sell Cotman a handsome drawing room operator who painted some of the most exquisite watercolours the world has ever seen feel about marrying a woman whose big nose made smart people snigger?</p> <p>How did a working-class child called Fanny Adams disintegrate into pieces in 1867 before being reassembled into a popular joke one we still reference today but would stop appalled if we knew its origins?</p> <p>Kathryn Hughes follows a thickened index finger or deep baritone voice into the realms of social history medical discourse aesthetic practise and religious observance – its language is one of admiring glances cruel sniggers an implacably turned back. The result is an eye-opening deeply intelligent groundbreaking account that brings the Victorians back to life and helps us understand how they lived their lives.</p>