Madonnas And Magdalens: The Origins And Development Of Victorian Sexual Attitudes
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
In an era defined by corsets, calling cards, and carefully cultivated moral rectitude, the Victorian age harboured a turbulent and contradictory inner life — one that Eric Trudgill lays bare with forensic clarity in Madonnas and Magdalens. The work chronicles the twin archetypes that dominated 19th-century British consciousness: the saintly, untouchable Madonna figure and her fallen counterpart, the Magdalen — and in doing so, maps the psychological and social fault lines that ran beneath the surface of respectable Victorian society. Trudgill traces the origins of these attitudes through religion, literature, medicine, and social reform, revealing how the period's obsession with female purity was both a moral project and a mechanism of control. A landmark contribution to the cultural history of sexuality, Madonnas and Magdalens argues that Victorian sexual attitudes were not simply repressive but deeply ambivalent — shaped by anxieties about class, religion, and the rapidly changing roles of women. Trudgill's prose is measured yet incisive, drawing on an impressive range of primary sources to illustrate how public virtue and private desire existed in uneasy tension throughout the age. For anyone seeking to understand how the modern world inherited its most enduring hang-ups about sex and gender, this essential study poses a question that still demands an answer.
Author: Eric Trudgill
Format: Hardback
Published: 1976, Heinemann: London
Genre: History
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
In an era defined by corsets, calling cards, and carefully cultivated moral rectitude, the Victorian age harboured a turbulent and contradictory inner life — one that Eric Trudgill lays bare with forensic clarity in Madonnas and Magdalens. The work chronicles the twin archetypes that dominated 19th-century British consciousness: the saintly, untouchable Madonna figure and her fallen counterpart, the Magdalen — and in doing so, maps the psychological and social fault lines that ran beneath the surface of respectable Victorian society. Trudgill traces the origins of these attitudes through religion, literature, medicine, and social reform, revealing how the period's obsession with female purity was both a moral project and a mechanism of control. A landmark contribution to the cultural history of sexuality, Madonnas and Magdalens argues that Victorian sexual attitudes were not simply repressive but deeply ambivalent — shaped by anxieties about class, religion, and the rapidly changing roles of women. Trudgill's prose is measured yet incisive, drawing on an impressive range of primary sources to illustrate how public virtue and private desire existed in uneasy tension throughout the age. For anyone seeking to understand how the modern world inherited its most enduring hang-ups about sex and gender, this essential study poses a question that still demands an answer.