I received an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

1.5/5

This one didn't work for me. It was too broad of a topic and the writing style (part academic, part informal) annoyed me. There were some interesting chapters included, but I felt that it was far too broad. It jumped from gay and lesbian relationships to racism to the persecution of queer men to sex toys to kinks to fashion to so many other things. It was just far too broad to talk about things, especially for a book that's very short. I just couldn't get into it at all and I found myself annoyed by it.

Unfortunately, this title was archived before I could download it and therefore I cannot leave a review. My apologies.

Very informative and enlightening read on sex in Victorian England.  It was fun to read and I easily got through it in two days.  Love all the facts about Oscar Wilde; I consider myself quite knowledgeable about Oscar but there were a few bits in here that I didn't know.  Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the early review copy.


A great read for anyone who is a fan of classic horror or short stories. With a solid mix of stories, this collection

I was delighted to see this book, as I hate the stereotype that Victorians were all buttoned-up prudes. Thank you, Violet Fenn, for helping to disperse that myth!

Fenn says in the introduction that someone could write entire books based off the materials in some of the chapters, and she isn't lying. The sections very much feel like introductory overviews. Not necessarily a bad thing, but something to be aware of. This isn't a deep delve.

While there may not be much depth, there certainly is breadth. Fenn covers courtship, fashion, gay relationships and pornography among other topics. Even though she doesn't go very in-depth on many of the topics, the book doesn't feel light on research. It's clear that Fenn has done some serious researcj, but she wears the weight of her research lightly, and it means that the book skips along nicely while still being informative.

The only thing that keeps this from being 5 stars is the length. It is a very short book, and I was left wanting more. Hopefully this book will be revised and additional material added.

A quick aside: This book disproved the 'Victoria didn't believe in lesbians' theory I've heard (and repeated!) so many times. Thanks for stopping me from spreading that misinformation about!

Many thanks to Pen & Sword History for an advanced review copy of the book via Netgalley.

If you are interested in Victorian times and how sex was treated then, this is your book! Along its pages you can find references to homosexuality, prostitution, contraception methods, sexually transmitted diseases, fidelity… and of course it tackles the role of women in Victorian society.

An excellent read, I strongly recommend it!

Thanks to NetGalley and Pen & Sword for a copy of this book to read and review.

This short non-fiction did everything it set out to do in the title - discoursed upon various topics related to sex and sexuality in Victorian Britain. Everything from courting to pornography, from clothing to sexual health was considered and it did a great job of giving an oversight to these various topics. I also appreciated that this provided stories from various Victorian individuals and their relation to the subjects currently under discussion at their point of entry into the narrative.

I did, however, find myself eager to delve deeper into certain themes and issues that the scant page count did not allow for. This did provide a cursory overview and I now have some prior knowledge when researching further, into these areas.

One such topic I wished had far more page time was that of consent. Unless I am mistaken only a page was dedicated towards it. The term 'teenager' was not know to the Victorians and so all those aged 12 and over were classed as adult. Later topics, such as sex toys and pornography, were decidedly icky to read about when you considered the young age of those who would be indulging or forced to indulge. Fenn, however, never seems to comment again on the children potentially involved in such horror.

Overall, this was an interesting read, even if I wished certain points were considered further and beyond what their segments allowed for.

As a thank you to Netgalley and the publisher ( Pen and Sword History) for an advanced readers copy of Violet Fenn’s “Sex and Sexuality in Victorian Britain” I write this review. This book was a quick guide to how Victorian society received the individual and their journey expressing their sexuality. She examined class, politics, fashion, medicine, and love among the many intersectional variables to an individual’s sexual identity. This book lays the groundwork to how the Victorians conceptualized sexuality and give an everlasting impression on the importance of that era in British society. I enjoyed this book thoroughly and commend its use of prose in speaking candidly concerning intellectual concepts,  and appreciated the authors' intellectual curiosity. I felt this was a brief yet conclusive examination at what Victorian society believed regarding sex and sexuality but showed importantly the humanity to which they lived. Overall I gave this book five out of five stars on Goodreads and highly recommend it. This title will be released on August 2nd, 2020.

I chose this book because I expected an interesting history lesson on a topic I wanted to learn more about. I mean, the cover is cool. The rest of the book was less than stellar to me.

There should be a warning for all of these topics included since they are just thrust upon the reader, and I know they can be hard for some people to handle: rape, child murder, child prostitution, postpartum depression and psychosis, sexual abuse, child harm, suicide, death, violence.

Violet Fenn provides a very chill introduction, saying she wanted to research about the topic of sexuality in this time period because it seems to be one we don’t talk about a lot. She doesn’t have footnotes at all, so I don’t know where some of this info comes from. She does say though that she uses internet searches a lot so you could probably just google this topic, and you would have the gist of her book.

I thought this was going to be all about sexuality and sex in Victorian Britain, but there was a chapter about what they wore. Yes, they would have been useful had it related to how they used it for sex. But it was juts like these people wear these clothes and sometimes they caught fire… omg skirts that were shorter and all of this stuff about clothes that I am not sure why it was included when it never hinted toward how it related to sexuality in the book. I was expecting like women wore the underwear with no crotch for easy sex or something. But nope. It was just like she started writing it, and she did not finish what she was trying to do in order to make her topics relate to each other.

Also, the way consent was talked about was terrible. Yeah, the age was raised to 13, but there was no discussion about the harms of this or how it was wrong. I just felt like she was like look at my sexy book. The age of consent was young, oh well. There could have been more about this topic and how it related to children being sex workers and the damage. Because when talking about sex in the time period, we should also be talking about how it can be harmful. Plus, it was creepy how she talked about the women forced to be tortured by doctors testing out dildos. It was not a fun sexy thing at all. She just made it seem like some kinky thing, and it wasn’t. This really bothered me.

I don’t know what to say about this book. It could have been good, but it was just like a poorly done research paper. If you want to know more about these topics, I am sure you can do your own google search or find better books. I thought this was going to be one of my favorite history books, but I was highly disappointed.

Thank you NetGalley and Pen and Sword for the review copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

quite an interesting read I must admit. Delved deeper into a subject that is quite fascinating in general and during a time period that isn't very often spoken of in terms of sex.

After finishing The Five I was keen to jump into Sex and Sexuality in Victorian England.  While it wasn’t what I thought it would be, I did find it fascinating and written in such an engaging manner. Violet Fenn discusses topics ranging from homosexuality to sex toys to contraception and everything in between. I found the story of Edith Lanchester the most interesting. Edith decided she would never wed her lover but still live with him. Her father found out and had her committed to an asylum. I won’t spoil the end of her story, but you must read this well written book on the society thought to be the most prude.

This book was very enjoyable and eye-opening to read. My wife and I have recently become very interested in the Victorians and this book shines a perfect light on them. To discover that the staid and uptight Victorians were not really that different from us was fun to discover. Ms. Fenn paints a clear picture and opens up the world of the Victorians better than other books I have read on the period.

Sex and Sexuality in Victorian Britain by Violet Fenn is a free NetGalley ebook that I read in early March.

Fenn grew up a Romantic Goth during the 80s while seeing the Victorian underpinnings of her hometown and is chatty, changes stream fast (in that the topic of sex isn't approached until 38% in), though it's very much not meant to be a documentary without some dramatic, topic-slashing editing. The topics include Victorian society had been so directed by fear of judgment and others’ ability to see past one’s proper exterior into the inner secret self; the rise of romance, chivalry, and courtship; being covered for modesty under multiple garments for women, but not men; the secret act of abortion and giving up unwanted children as foundlings; existence of Magdalene laundries/asylums for unmarried pregnant women and former prostitutes; rare occasions of marital divorce; dildos and submission play; gay society, the plight of Oscar Wilde; STDs, self-care and hygiene.

Veers more towards ‘lightweight’ than ‘accessible’. At times it’s downright salacious and reads more like an ALevel essay than a serious historical appraisal of the subject.

Short but interesting read in the history of sex in Victorian Britain, as it was so short I didn’t feel it went in depth into things or could always cover the subject properly, as such it felt more an introduction to the subject. It was interesting and written well, but felt needed to be more in-depth to be a history book that I would usually buy or read. 

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

trigger warning
<spoiler> genital mutilation, rape, child murder, suicide, child prostitution, being declared insane an shut away, terminal illnesses, grief, postpartum depression and psychosis, mental illness</spoiler>

In the introduction, author Violet Fenn explaines what she set out to do: She researched Victorian every-day life, specially those parts nobody seems to talk about, and compiled a book of her most interestings finds. 
This is not academical in any way, which is the only excuse she gives for having no footnotes. Which is a shame. Some of the more creative claims would have benefitted from added source material.

For the first few chapters, topics fade into each other fittingly, like the description of courting finishin with a general explanation of the layers men and especially women wore at that time.
Final chapter and conclusion felt unfinished, as if it were the first draft and not a finished version, and could have used more time and effort.

A big problem I have is with consent. The only way this is talked about is in the age of consent, that at the beginning of Victoria's reign was 12 and at the end was increased to thirteen. Consent is only being spoken about in legal terms, not in the application of it. The description of medical professionals fingering women for health benefits is talked about like a kinky phantasy, not like a violation of every boundary.

I  don't really know what to make of this book. Some parts were very interesting, others not presented in an ideal way, some felt very, very iffy. It might be a good entry way to the topic, but if you're really interested, you probably already know the right books to consider.

I recieved a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Highly detailed look at Victorian Britain covering every aspect of life from the upper classes to their servants. Filled with anecdotes and busting widely held myths this book explores Sex and Sexuality and how Victorians coped with society's restrictions.

Interesting and informative with engaging writing , if you want to learn about the history of some of your own sexual hangup read this book!!

I really liked learning more about how things were different back in the Victorian era.

I requested an ARC from NetGalley and got exactly what I expected from this read.

It seems the ARC wasn't properly edited for book excerpt, but I'm assuming this is going to be fixed for the released version of the book. 

I would definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to know more about different times.

Upon first starting this book, I felt a little wary of it. Although it is true that I requested it from the publisher, I didn’t realize at the time that I was requesting a book of less than 150 pages. I don’t feel like you can explore much of anything in so few pages – especially something as broad and complex as sex and/or sexuality. After reading the book, I feel that my wariness was justified. 144 pages just isn’t enough. There is information, but it all feels cursory. It seems like more page-space was devoted to historical anecdotes than actual information or research.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed what information there was, but I feel like for the price of the book, there should be a little more. I enjoyed the anecdotes, but I enjoy verifiable information even more. It also bothered me a bit that very little information actually included cited sources. In this type of book I sort of expect citations to be found all over the place, but what you get here is the occasional parenthetical citation, but more often either no citations at all or something along the lines of ‘a simple Google search will show.’ That doesn’t really do it for me.

Fenn just didn’t quite delve as deep as I was expecting. It was interesting, sure, but there wasn’t a whole lot of information there that felt like I couldn’t have just as easily internet searched – which as I mentioned, the author herself pointed out on more than one occasion.

If you want short and sweet, with a bit of surface information, check this book out. Fenn writes well, and she’s fairly humorous, so if that’s your thing maybe you’ll enjoy it more than I did!

This was an interesting read and I liked how it explored sex and sexuality from different areas of Victorian Britain. The sources and arguments presented were interesting and I thought the writing style was clear and easy to follow for your average reader with enough detail for those more advanced in the topic to still learn about the time period.