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Deborah Lutz

Pleasure Bound: Victorian Sex Rebels and the New Eroticism Hardcover – Deckle Edge, February 14, 2011

by Deborah Lutz (Author)

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A smart, provocative account of the erotic current running just beneath the surface of a stuffy and stifling Victorian London.

At the height of the Victorian era, a daring group of artists and thinkers defied the reigning obsession with propriety, testing the boundaries of sexual decorum in their lives and in their work. Dante Gabriel Rossetti exhumed his dead wife to pry his only copy of a manuscript of his poems from her coffin. Legendary explorer Richard Burton wrote how-to manuals on sex positions and livened up the drawing room with stories of eroticism in the Middle East. Algernon Charles Swinburne visited flagellation brothels and wrote pornography amid his poetry. By embracing and exploring the taboo, these iconoclasts produced some of the most captivating art, literature, and ideas of their day.

As thought-provoking as it is electric, Pleasure Bound unearths the desires of the men and women who challenged buttoned-up Victorian mores to promote erotic freedom. These bohemians formed two loosely overlapping societies―the Cannibal Club and the Aesthetes―to explore their fascinations with sexual taboo, from homosexuality to the eroticization of death. Known as much for their flamboyant personal lives as for their controversial masterpieces, they created a scandal-provoking counterculture that paved the way for such later figures as Gustav Klimt, Virginia Woolf, and Jean Genet.

In this stunning exposé of the Victorian London we thought we knew, Deborah Lutz takes us beyond the eyebrow-raising practices of these sex rebels, revealing how they uncovered troubles that ran beneath the surface of the larger social fabric: the struggle for women’s emancipation, the dissolution of formal religions, and the pressing need for new forms of sexual expression. 8 pages four-color and 5 black-and-white illustrations

Print length

336 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

February 14, 2011
Dimensions

6.2 x 1.2 x 8.6 inches
ISBN-10

0393068323
ISBN-13

978-0393068320
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Therese Oneill
1,097
Paperback
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lutz (The Dangerous Lover), a professor of Victorian literature and culture at Long Island University, explores that era as one of sexual and erotic experimentation, when an artist like Dante Gabriel Rossetti used a prostitute as a model in a painting of Mary Magdalene, and even "respectable gentlemen" sought "young grenadiers" for anonymous sex in public toilets. Artists and writers produced sexually themed writing and painting that unsettled Victorians by evincing radical ideas about sexual freedom, women's rights, and religious doubt. Rossetti brought sensuality to his paintings of sickness and death. His devout yet daring sister Christina's work reforming prostitutes inspired her own lush sensual verse. Richard Burton, the secret agent and explorer, wrote how-to manuals on sexual positions; and Algernon Charles Swinburne published verse on hermaphrodites, bisexuals, sexual sadists, incest, and the femme fatale, and loved being flogged by prostitutes dressed as schoolmasters and mistresses. Lutz's long-winded meanderings often erode the sexiness of her subject matter, but this is a perceptive, thorough assessment of Victorian erotica and those defiant ones who crafted it. 8 pages of color and 5 b&w illus. (Feb.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Think of Victorians: what comes to mind? Chairs swathed with fabric so that their wooden legs or “limbs” did not suggest sex? Uptight men whose wives were “angels in the house”? Certainly, but what about Oscar Wilde, Algernon Swinburne, Richard Burton? Lutz argues that they defined the period as fully as Victoria herself, draped in endless mourning for her Prince Albert. In this compellingly written multiple biography, Lutz explores two groups that formed themselves around strong personalities: the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood gathered around poet-painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and the Cannibal Club founded by explorer Burton. These groups, she argues, created an opening for today’s more sexually tolerant society, especially in terms of acceptance of homosexuality. While many of the more flamboyant characters of the period are relatively unknown today—artist Simeon Solomon, for instance, or hedonist Bunny Arbuthnot—those more familiar (William Morris, James McNeill Whistler, Ford Madox Brown) were just as sexually adventurous, with partner exchange, rough trade, and other unconventionalities abounding. Filled with raw and raucous detail, this book is a lasting contribution to understanding a complex and dynamic era. --Patricia Monaghan

Review

"Pleasure Bound shines a sensitive light into the darker corners of Victorian sexuality. The sometimes subtle, sometimes consuming interplay of sensuality and death; the danger and draw of sexual transgression; the irresistible lure of forbidden pleasure--through their erotic longings and adventures, the Victorian sex rebels lead us to the heart of a struggle for authentic sexual expression in an era of repression now past. Or is it?"
― Patricia Anderson, Ph.D., author of When Passion Reigned: Sex and the Victorians

"Pleasure Bound is a lively, readable and informative survey of the sometimes surprising connections between art, literature, and the sexual underworld in Victorian England."
― David Lodge, author of Deaf Sentence

"As seductive as a Swinburne sapphic, Pleasure Bound is for the casual reader, the aesthete and the pleasure seeker alike. If there wasn't a scholarly excuse for reading it, you'd feel guilty for having so much fun. Just don't leave it lying around."
― Wesley Stace, author of Misfortune

"Using a deft combination of biography, aesthetic analysis, and cultural commentary, Pleasure Bound offers a history of those Victorian writers and artists who lived―and sometimes died―for the conjoined cause of eros and art. The result is a bawdy, intricate, edifying, and sometimes heartbreaking book that sheds light on a fascinating constellation of creators, without ever losing sight of the importance of keeping―as Lutz sagely puts it -- 'the dark core dark.'"
― Maggie Nelson, author of The Art of Cruelty

"A delightful spree through Victorian England's red-light district, Deborah Lutz's Pleasure Bound explores in lucid and engaging prose the pornographic underpinnings of nineteenth-century British art, poetry, and anthropology."
― Matthew Kaiser, Harvard University

"It is unusual to find a history of sex that is both readable and erudite. Deborah Lutz’s Pleasure Bound is a delightful romp between the legs―and elsewhere―of Victorian England that offers a deeply penetrating gaze into its sexual subjects."
― Frederick S. Roden, author of Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Religious Culture

"A polished, thought-provoking, and original work of history that possesses all the finesse of literature."
― Simon Van Booy, author of The Secret Lives of People in Love

About the Author

Deborah Lutz is the Thruston B. Morton Endowed Chair of English at the University of Louisville. She has published four books, most recently The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects and Relics of Death in Victorian Literature and Culture. She is the editor of the Norton Critical Editions of Jane Eyre and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and the recipient of an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Illustrated edition (February 14, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393068323
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393068320
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.15 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.2 x 1.2 x 8.6 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,502,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #992 in Medical Psychology of Sexuality
- #2,062 in Psychology & Counseling Books on Sexuality
- #7,481 in Behavioral Sciences (Books)

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Deborah Lutz

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Deborah Lutz is the Thruston B. Morton Professor of English at the University of Louisville. Her scholarship focuses on material culture; the history of attitudes toward death and mourning; the history of sexuality, pornography and erotica; and gender and gay studies. Her writing has appeared in numerous journals, collections, and newspapers, including The New York Times; Novel: A Forum on Fiction; Victorian Literature and Culture; The Oxford History of the Novel in English, and Cabinet. She has been interviewed by The New York Times, NPR, Salon, The History Channel, and many other news outlets. She is the editor of the fourth Norton Critical Edition of Jane Eyre.

Her most recent book, The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects (W.W. Norton, 2015), was shortlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography. Her others books include Relics of Death in Victorian Literature and Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2015), which was supported by an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship; The Dangerous Lover: Gothic Villains, Byronism, and the Nineteenth-Century Seduction Narrative (Ohio State UP, 2006); and Pleasure Bound: Victorian Sex Rebels and the New Eroticism (Norton, 2011).

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I'm somewhat ambivalent about this book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 23, 2011

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This was not the book I expected to read. Now mostly I don't like reviewers who criticize a book for what they thought it should have been, but in this case I feel it bears mentioning that "Pleasure Bound" is not so much an academic study of the sexual mores of Victorian England, but rather a kind biographical study of the figures Lutz identifies as sexual rebels.

In all honesty, the goings-on in this group don't seem all that rebellious given that the Victorians were notorious for honoring the form of propriety over the actual fact of it. The age of consent was surprisingly low, and prostitution was staggeringly wide-spread. It's true that there were laws against homosexual behavior, but they focused on sodomy -- anal intercourse -- and were also subject to something of a double standard. The rich and well-connected would have to rub the noses of the public in their sexual antics in order to suffer unduly for them.

What I think Lutz was aiming at -- and it's always awkward to try to second guess any author, so take this with a grain of salt -- is to show how the artists of the day were exploring beyond the limits society placed on their sexual expression. Which is what artists do. And certainly Lutz succeeds in this, with a lot of detail about both Gabriel and Christina Rossetti, Swinburne, William Morris and his wife, Jane; Simeon Solomon, who was one of the least known artists in the Pre-Raphaelite sphere; and Sir Richard Burton and his wife, Isabel. In fact, in some cases it seems to be a bit too much detail, not in the sense of being salacious, but in the sense of having very little to do with the central focus of the book.

I would also question the author's assertion that the artists' communes/collectives of both Rossetti and Morris were in any way indications of latent homosexuality. (At least that's the way I read what was presented.) There were few female artists working in the same areas as the PRB in those days. Those who were connected with these men were either relatives or prostitutes. To be other than that, a single woman involved in some sort of live-in situation, was to invite comparison with the latter.

In general, "Pleasure Bound" is an interesting and informative read, but it does often ramble, and I can't help but feel that it's a bit forced in terms of its central argument. Still, if you're a student or fan of the era or any of the personalities Lutz is writing about, you will almost certainly find something to interest, inform or intrigue you.

34 people found this helpful

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Charlus

Victoria's Bohemians

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 26, 2011

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Despite the mildly salacious subtitle, this is a sober, intelligent retelling of the lives of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, adding on the Arts and Crafts movement and the life of Sir Richard Burton, the explorer. And while the author does examine at length the contribution these personages made to the sexual undercurrents of the time (sexual writings such as the Kama Sutra and flagellation literature, paintings that could be interpreted either as religious or sexual ecstasy), the social, cultural and historical framework extends the picture beyond the libidinous.

Although well researched, there is little new here that hasn't been documented by previous writers such as Steven Marcus or Peter Gay, who helped effectively explode the myth of the prurient Victorians. And Ms. Lutz's writing style, while clear, is often uninspired. The organization by theme rather than sequence allows for some repetition.

Nonetheless the story she has to tell is consistently interesting, especially if the reader comes uninformed, even when it doesn't wander within the realm of the erotic, and serves as a good introduction to some fascinating personalities.

12 people found this helpful

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Anne Rice

Beautifully written account of Swinburne, Burton, the Pre-Rafaelites and Others.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 8, 2014

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The title of this book: "Pleasure Bound: Victorian Sex Rebels and the New Eroticism" sums up the contents very well. The writing is eloquent and readable. I recommend this to anyone trying to understand the remarkable and revolutionary undercurrents of sexuality in Victorian society. I especially valued the account of Swinburne. Also the discussion of Simeon Solomon, his family, his friendship with Swinburne, his remarkable paintings --- all of this I found extremely valuable. Lutz calls Solomon our first gay painter. I had read nothing about Solomon before this and want to study his work. This is a book I will keep in my library.

5 people found this helpful

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Gregory Paul Adkins

Can I Get my Money Back?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 1, 2011

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This is a lovely book about Pre-Raphaelite art and the poetry of various Victorian writers. The title is quite misleading. I regret to say I feel as if I have been duped.

This book refers to, but does not tell the stories of the people who populate its pages. It mentions a certain author frequented prostitutes but says nothing more about this fact. There are of course stories of Victorian eroticism to be told, but this book does not do so.

5 people found this helpful

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Chris Ward

A Hodge-Podge, But An Amusing One

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 25, 2011

Deborah Lutz gets full marks for writing an amalgam of intriguing stories about some of Victorian England's most free-thinking sexual spirits, larded with an overlay of light analytical commentary. It's pretty clear she had a swell time reading all she could about the underbelly of Victorian society, and she revels in relating all the best tidbits she found. Surely it is no secret that there was a juicy subculture of pornography, brothels, and sexual experimentation going on at the time (or any time in history, for that matter), but the personalities she chooses to illustrate her thesis are very entertaining exemplars.

The book serves as an excellent introduction to characters who've been memorialized by scores of more thorough biographies: Richard Francis Burton, A. C. Swinburne, Henry Spencer Ashbee (whose bio, "The Erotomaniac," by Ian Gibson, is a work of remarkable research), Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites, and a number of others. It's evident that Lutz admires these free-thinkers and adventurers, and she ably shares her enthusiasm for them. Soon you'll know all about "fladge porn" and the heartbreak of spermatorrhea and dozens of other erotic oddments-- it was a time of tremendous ferment and taboo-breaking, and there's much to praise in the actions of those who flouted the conventions of the era to open new doors of honesty and scholarship. To truly be yourself in any age is an act of courage. Lutz salutes these men (and several women) who broke the shackles of repression to be true to themselves and their desires.

7 people found this helpful

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rockmom5280

Intriguing and Informative

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 12, 2015

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Love, love, loooooooove.

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Top reviews from other countries

Dr. P. Cramer

Enjoyable romp through Victorian era's less respectable side

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 7, 2012

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Having read a fair number of books about the lives of the Pre-Raphaelites I didn't expect too much of this.However I found it a really well written,a good read with plenty of detail that was new to me.Though by no means exhaustively biographical it brought the protagonists to life e.g.Rossetti,Swinburne,Burton and Whistler more successfully and entertainingly than many other works.Strongly recommended even if the price ,for the length,is a bit steep.

One person found this helpful

I. A. Peden

Did syphilis unhinge the Vistorian Male

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 27, 2014

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This History of the pre-Raphelite artists in Victorian England starts with several good balanced chapters. The artists are portrayed as complex, sensitive , but balanced, and above all , creative characters.
The book then descends into several chapters of a depressing description of sexual madness. Perhaps syphilis did unhinge the creative Victorian male mind. Perhaps all artists are manic depressives. What cost creativity?

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