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Amazon.co.uk Review
Matthew Sweet's Inventing the Victorians sets out to rescue the Victorians from their prudish and stuffy reputation. A century after Queen Victoria's death there is a scramble to re-evaluate and explode many of the myths attached to Victorian Britain which started with Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians (1913) and have been cultivated ever since by assorted Freudian analysts, feminists, strait-laced historians, political spin-doctors (remember Margaret Thatcher's "Victorian values") and lazy media types. Through a 13-chapter tour of the wilder side of 19th-century Britain--theatrical spectacle, contact ads, WT Stead's investigative journalism, opium dens, etiquette and cookery books, freak shows, boys' adventure stories and the amusing tale of what Prince Albert kept in his pants--Sweet argues the case for the Victorians being more sexually liberated, more obsessed with sensational events and public lives and for being greater consumers of narcotics, pornography and the bizarre than they have ever been given credit. They were, in other words, more like us than we realise. What a depressing thought. This book is a fun read: it is clever, informative and provocative, although too often the journalist inside the author leaps from a suggestive idea to a monstrous exaggeration. Matthew Sweet is not of course the first to unveil the Victorians. Some readers may wonder whether yet another account is really required of the Rugeley murders, the "Elephant Man", Walter's Secret Life, and the Victorian dependence on opium. And as for Prince Albert--his nether regions have long been the subject of scholarly discussion-lists on North American Victorian Studies Web sites. But the time is right to relocate the Victorians and Sweet's book does just that. --Miles Taylor
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'This is a profoundly stimulating and entertaining book'. D. J. Taylor, Sunday Times; 'Matthew Sweet has opened a blast of fresh air into the hothouse of Victorian studies. His book is packed with weird and wonderful information'. Spectator; 'He tells his revisionist version exceedingly well, describing a lurid thrill-seeking populace avid for sensation. Colourful characters parade through chapters that demonstrate how innovative, fast-paced, diverse and radical the era was. Sweet has turned his scholarly research through the detritus of high and low 19th-century culture into a page-turning piece of pop-culture history... A darned good read, and no mistake,' Big Issue
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
History as it should be: both entertaining and informative,
By
This review is from: Inventing the Victorians (Hardcover)
The thesis of 'Inventing the Victorians' is that they were a much more lively bunch than we would imagine. They were attracted to spectacle, sex, and advertising and do not deserve their reputation as staid and repressed. The book argues this theme in an entertaining way and is full of well researched examples. One criticism is that it might rely too much on anecdotal evidence, but scientific evidence on cultural issues is elusive.The book is a great read for anyone interested in nineteenth century culture, and would probably prove frustrating to anyone looking for a text book or treating this as the key source book for an essay. In an academic context it would provide an alternative view and a few good examples. I would also suggest that the points the book makes are best understood against a background of knowledge of what was going on in England at that time. None of the above should be read as criticism, but is rather an explanation of the type of book it is. Compared to more traditional history books it is an easy and interesting read - closer to a novel or a newspaper report than something to be studied. Overall I recommend this book highly to anyone with an interest in what it was like to live in Victorian times.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
revolutionary account of the Victorian era,
By jonathanburford@lycos.co.uk (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Inventing the Victorians (Hardcover)
Matthew Sweet's informative, stimulating, funny and surprising account of life in the nineteenth century is the best and most iconoclastic version you're likely to read. It overturns cliche after cliche, and demonstrates that the view of the period offered in films, TV, newspaper articles and academic writing is all mediated through a set of self-serving prejudices: prejudices which were first formed in the early years of the twentieth century. Let's hope more people start to see it his way. He doesn't suggest this, but perhaps the word Victorian itself needs to be abandoned - it carries too much negative baggage. This book leads the way towards a better understanding of life in the period. Recommended for anyone about to study the period.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
exhilirating ride through the nineteenth century,
By A Customer
This review is from: Inventing the Victorians (Hardcover)
This book is an amazing treasure box of strange and wonderful stories. Which other histories of the nineteenth century tell you about Ernest Keen the transvestite boy detective, the Educated Talking Oyster, the Baby-Killer of Kentish Town, or the Bipenis Boy?Matthew Sweet tells all their stories with wit and style, and convinces you that the Victorian era was much more pleasurable and wild than we've all been led to believe. Did you know, for instance, that the old story about covering up piano legs is a joke that the Victorians told about the Americans? Or that William Gladstone was an opium user? All is revealed in this book.
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