Great Scandals of the Victorians: Disreputable Stories from the Royal Court to the Stage – 3.5 stars
For all that Victorians had a reputation for being straitlaced, they had their fair share of scandals – and some of them ended up having major effects on contemporary society, sometimes even driving forth social changes which still affect us today.
I love a good gossip session about people I’ve never met, which is why history is one of my favorite subjects. In this book, we learn about seven major scandals that took place during the Victorian era, some which I’d heard of before and others which were unfamiliar to me. I liked that we got in depth with each story, discussing not only the scandal and its participants but also why it played out the way it did due to the broader context of the times.
I also appreciated that the scandals discussed were fairly weighty ones, relating to issues (among others) such as marriage and divorce law, human trafficking, and the treatment of LGBT individuals at the time. However, with just seven stories selected from such a long period of history, I felt like the view we got on Victorian life was rather limited – it would have been nice to have additional stories discussed, even if it was just supplementary material to show how these incidents fell in the broader context of the time.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.
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Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement – 3 stars
Just as their gender and race impacted how the suffragists went about campaigning for the vote, Wendy L Rouse argues in this book that their sexuality played its part as well – but that those both within and outside the movement downplayed its importance in a bid for greater acceptance by the general public.
Being well-acquainted with the American suffrage movement as learned about in elementary through high school, it was fascinating to become reacquainted with through an entirely new lens which I had not even had an inkling of before. Rouse lays out how the queer identities of many activists permeated the movement, whether it be in the tactics they used, what motivated their dedication to the cause, or how they built alliances with other suffragists both locally and across the Atlantic.
Equally fascinating to me was how many in the movement sought to hide it, engaging with ‘politics of respectability’ and conforming to the social standards of the time where they could to make the change they were demanding seem not as threatening – a tactic that is unfortunately still thought necessary today. While I was aware of this concept I had never known the name or dived deeper into the ideas surrounding it, so I enjoyed the discussion.
However, the writing was a little dry for my taste, even for a book released by a university press; while the subject was definitely discussed in an accessible manner, I found myself reading it in shorter stretches than I usually do. I also felt the author repeated herself on some points, furthering the feeling of reading a very long term paper sometimes.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.
