Victorian patchwork

by Cyril Pearl

Heinemann : London [Published 1972]. Hardcover, 223 pp. Black and white illustrations. [From front jacket flap] 'Every age is a patchwork, but the Victorian is unique for its complexity and its contrasts,' writes the author. 'It was a brutal age, but it produced notable humanitarians. It was a callous age, but it produced notable reformers. It was a conformist age, but it produced notable rebels. It was a materialistic age, but it produced poets as well as stockbrokers, philosophers as well as factory-owners. It preached a morality which is still, pejoratively, called "Victorian", but it had its playboys as well as its puritans, its triumphant whores as well as its downtrodden wives.' In this shrewd and entertaining scrutiny of Victorian morals Mr Pearl seeks to show by deftly selected examples how vivid were the contrasts which this double standard implied. Among his subjects are flagellomania, the carnival atmosphere at public hangings, the pornography trade, the robust buffoonery of pranksters and playboys, the ostentation of public (and some private) funerals, and the democracy of drink. Like the Victorian demi-monde which Mr Pearl described in his highly acclaimed The Girl with the Swansdown Seat, this patchwork world is not always comfortable or edifying - but it pullulates with life.

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1972