Review
'Long overdue, an assessment of English pornography needs to pay attention to context as well as content. Peakman's book is rich with detail and she presents texts that have long been hidden from view. A must read.' - Margaret C. Jacob, UCLA
'When [Julie Peakman] started out, the topic of erotic writings was a largely uncharted and under-theorized field. To a considerable degree she has had to carve out the boundaries of the topic for herself and work out her own intellectual framework... well-researched, well-documented, well-argued and coherent... makes a substantial contribution to scholarship' - Roy Porter
'It is now generally agreed that the creation of new sexual stereotypes and forms of self-identity in the eighteenth century is central to the creation of 'modernity'. Part of this process was the emergence of new, and newly domesticated, forms of pornography and erotic writing. Mighty Lewd Books gives us a readable, engaging and conprehensive account of the history of eighteenth-century pornography and erotica. By exploring the history of this artefact of sexual behaviour at the moment when modern sexualities were created, Peakman provides a new and important understanding of both the meaning of dirty books, and the origins of modernity.' - Tim Hitchcock
'This...fascinating and intelligent survey shows how an explosion of obscene literature immediately followed the wild success of pioneering (but largely non-pornographic) fictions by Defoe, Swift, Richardson and their imitators...Porn's strongest selling point were that it was sexy, unrespectable and forbidden, of course, but Julie Peakman shows that it had other attributes, not always connected directly with sex. It popularised new scientific ideas in botany, anatomy and electricity. It stoked the fires of anti-Catholicism with its lecherous monks and nuns, and it encompassed radical ideas in politics.' - Financial Times
'Drawing heavily on the contents of what the British Library quaintly terms its Cupboard, better known as the Private Case, plus a vast bibliography of secondary sources, she [Peakman] displays the whole world of Eighteenth-century erotica/porn and offers explications of both practice and theory.' - Erotic Review
'When [Julie Peakman] started out, the topic of erotic writings was a largely uncharted and under-theorized field. To a considerable degree she has had to carve out the boundaries of the topic for herself and work out her own intellectual framework... well-researched, well-documented, well-argued and coherent... makes a substantial contribution to scholarship' - Roy Porter
'It is now generally agreed that the creation of new sexual stereotypes and forms of self-identity in the eighteenth century is central to the creation of 'modernity'. Part of this process was the emergence of new, and newly domesticated, forms of pornography and erotic writing. Mighty Lewd Books gives us a readable, engaging and conprehensive account of the history of eighteenth-century pornography and erotica. By exploring the history of this artefact of sexual behaviour at the moment when modern sexualities were created, Peakman provides a new and important understanding of both the meaning of dirty books, and the origins of modernity.' - Tim Hitchcock
'This...fascinating and intelligent survey shows how an explosion of obscene literature immediately followed the wild success of pioneering (but largely non-pornographic) fictions by Defoe, Swift, Richardson and their imitators...Porn's strongest selling point were that it was sexy, unrespectable and forbidden, of course, but Julie Peakman shows that it had other attributes, not always connected directly with sex. It popularised new scientific ideas in botany, anatomy and electricity. It stoked the fires of anti-Catholicism with its lecherous monks and nuns, and it encompassed radical ideas in politics.' - Financial Times
'Drawing heavily on the contents of what the British Library quaintly terms its Cupboard, better known as the Private Case, plus a vast bibliography of secondary sources, she [Peakman] displays the whole world of Eighteenth-century erotica/porn and offers explications of both practice and theory.' - Erotic Review
The Financial Times Magazine
...[A]fascinating and intelligent survey...
The Erotic Review
...[Peakman] displays the whole world of eighteenth-century erotica/porn and offers explications of both practice and theory.
Product Description
Mighty Lewd Books provides a radical new approach to the study of sexuality in an in-depth investigation of the development of pornography. Through the examination of more than 500 pieces of British erotica, it looks at sex as seen in culture, religion and medicine throughout the long eighteenth-century.
A new form of flagellation pornography burst to the fore in the 1770s when erotic fiction became littered with whipping scenarios. Prior to this, English erotica had included a particular style of bawdy material marked by euphemisms and double entendres.
Erotic poems, salacious prints and obscene satires were sold in London coffee-shops, in taverns, on street corners and in various book shops along the Strand and in Covent Garden. The underworld of booksellers and distributors are explored through trial records and witness depositions.
This book also explores popular images in erotica; femal flagellants whipping their submissive charges; depraved monks corrupting innocent nuns; libertine rascals seducing young virgins; and rakes carousing with their whores.
Using the evidence of erotica, and taking a feminist approach within a framework of gender history, this book challenges the traditional view that women were generally seen as sexually passive.
A new form of flagellation pornography burst to the fore in the 1770s when erotic fiction became littered with whipping scenarios. Prior to this, English erotica had included a particular style of bawdy material marked by euphemisms and double entendres.
Erotic poems, salacious prints and obscene satires were sold in London coffee-shops, in taverns, on street corners and in various book shops along the Strand and in Covent Garden. The underworld of booksellers and distributors are explored through trial records and witness depositions.
This book also explores popular images in erotica; femal flagellants whipping their submissive charges; depraved monks corrupting innocent nuns; libertine rascals seducing young virgins; and rakes carousing with their whores.
Using the evidence of erotica, and taking a feminist approach within a framework of gender history, this book challenges the traditional view that women were generally seen as sexually passive.
About the Author
JULIE PEAKMAN is one of the most innovative of the young historians to emerge in the recent explosion of gender history. She lectures in Sex in History, is currently working on her second book on sexual behaviour in the eighteenth-century and is a fellow of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. She regularly appears at national and international conferences and in the media.
