The Big Book of Legs [Hardcover]

Dian Hanson (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 28, 2009

The female leg is a sexual oddity. Its non-genital, nearly identical in structure to the corresponding male body part, and there is no obvious reason why it should be eroticized. Yet, through much of history, across many cultures, the female leg was hidden from sight and treated as such a taboo topic that it became an object of intense sexual obsession. In the Victorian era, the word leg was so forbidden that it couldnt be uttered in polite society. Even now, 80 years after women legs came out of hiding, their allure remains strong. In this third book of Dian Hanson wildly successful body parts series, she explores how freeing the female leg became central to women liberation, beginning with the French Revolution and ending with the sexual revolution. Learn who wore the first high heels, how nylons became a weapon of war, why Betty Grable were the million dollar legs, while enjoying great vintage photos by Irving Klaw Batters, and other great masters of leg art.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dian Hanson is TASCHEN's sexy book editor. As a 25-year veteran of men's magazine publishing, she edited titles including Puritan, OUI, Outlaw Biker, Juggs, and Leg Show. Her many books for TASCHEN include The Big Book of Breasts and The Big Penis Book.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 388 pages
• Publisher: TASCHEN America Llc; Mul edition (May 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3836501880
• ISBN-13: 978-3836501880
• Product Dimensions: 12.1 x 11.9 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #60,348 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #75 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Photo Essays
  • #99 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Portraits

More About the Author

Dian Hanson was born in Seattle, Washington, November 2, 1951. A hippie and high school drop out, she moved east at age 20, first to Oxford, Mississippi, then Allentown, Pennsylvania, finally settling in New York City in 1976 to work on the sex magazine Puritan. Over the next 25 years she edited magazines including Partner, Oui, Adult Cinema Review, Harvey, Hooker, Juggs and Leg Show. She founded the magazines Outlaw Biker, Hawgs, Big Butt, Bust Out and Tight. In 1993 Hanson became friends with Benedikt Taschen, and in 2001 she finally agreed to leave sex magazines and take over the Sexy Book division of TASCHEN Publishing. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the novelist Geoff Nicholson.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Toes, hose and everything in-between, June 12, 2009

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Big Book of Legs (Hardcover)

Dian Hanson was the obvious choice to compile this huge leg book. She edited the very successful Leg Show magazine for a number of years and clearly knows everything from the toes to the top of the hose (to quote her friend Elmer Batters). The book follows sexy legs through the decades from the twenties to the sixties, mostly with photos but Hanson contributes text dealing with: cancan; flappers; Betty Grable; Nylons and WW2; Bettie Page; Elmer Batters; high heel history and the last chapter on toes. There is nothing particularly new in the text and the references to personalities and magazines are fully covered in Hanson's six-volume `History of Men's Magazines', also from Taschen.

The sixties were the great years for male connoisseurs of leg photos and thankfully the book does rather concentrate on those photographically with plenty from ace leg snapper Batters. Dian sums it up as...`a golden age of glossy nylons, stiletto heels, towering bouffants, black patent eyeliner, cigarettes dangling from thickly painted lips, martini glasses clutched by long red nails, and attitude oozing from every pore'. Fans of the genre will enjoy page after page of these hard-edged chicks that are clearly not in the Playboy girl-next-door mold.

The book's production is up to the usual Taschen standards: super design; quality paper; the four hundred plus photos are well printed (with 200dpi) though it occurred to me that many of the photos seemed untrimmed but I guess this would be a minor detail for readers.

`The Big Book of Legs' is the third body-parts title from Hanson and Taschen, after the Big Penis and Big Breasts I wonder what zone will be next?

***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Big Book of Legs, June 22, 2009

By 

Roy Brown (New York) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Big Book of Legs (Hardcover)

Having purchased Dian Hanson's previous book, The Big Book of Breasts she uses the same text to explain the fascination with the sexual attraction to legs as she did with breasts.
Like her previous book, she highlights in beautiful photographs famous and ametuer nude models mostly in garter belts and heels. This is a great book as it shows the models as beautiful to the beholder of the book and she doesn't use one standard to measure the beauty of the model. E.g. breast size, weight, height. Like her previous book on breasts, she showcases models from the 50', 60's, and 70's. Seeing how women wore their hair, and weren't afraid to pose naked adds to the mystique of the models she choose to highlight. Keeping in mind, how society thought about women who would take off their clothes for pictures at that time.
This book is classic eye candy for anyone who misses those more simpler girly magazines that were not as pornographic in nature. I would recommend highly both books for those of us who enjoy looking at what women used to look like back then underneath their clothes.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bipedal Magnificense!, October 6, 2009

By 

Michelle7 "Editor of Michelle7(dot)com" - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Big Book of Legs (Hardcover)

This is the third book by editor, Dian Hanson detailing our fascination with human body parts. The first two being female breasts and the male penis. Like in her earlier endeavors, she provides insightful commentary here along with a visual smorgasbord that's especially designed to appeal to devotees of the female leg (and feet). Viewers are treated to superb examples of every angle and curve (and genitalia too) of womankind's bipedal magnificence. The collection of photography presented, while almost exclusively taken from rare, vintage archives, is absolutely amazing. Fans of both the female nude and vintage photography in general will be astounded by these rarely seen images. Bettie Page, Elmer Batters, and several other stars make their appearance too. All in all, this is quite possibly the finest book in Ms. Hanson's body part series (at least so far) and its 388 pages will keep leg aficionados (and feet lovers too) ... entertained for hours.