Primers for Prudery: Sexual Advice to Victorian America - Brossura

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0801863481 ISBN 13: 9780801863486

Casa editrice: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr, 2000

Riassunto

In Primers for Prudery Ronald G. Walters examines the historical and social context as well as the substance of sexual advice manuals in nineteenth-century America. Allowing the authors of these manuals to speak for themselves—with generous excerpts by contemporary authorities on subjects ranging from the virtues of celibacy to the vices of masturbation—Walters offers his readers a complex reading of the Victorian "prudery" referred to in the book's title. Supplementing each of the excerpts with extensive commentary, he places the advice manuals in the larger setting of gender and class issues.

First published in 1974, Primers for Prudery now returns to print in a paperback edition with new selections from women's advice to women and a new preface in which Walters discusses changes that have occurred in the scholarship on sexuality since the book's first publication. He also provides an updated bibliographical note.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

"Primers for Prudery offers a wide range of nineteenth-century documents relating to sexuality that are available nowhere else. Particularly useful are the book's internal divisions, which identify important categories of analysis for the study of nineteenth-century sexuality."

(Kathryn Kish Sklar, State University of New York at Binghampton)

"Walters warns that by today's standards, the advice may appear naive, even ludicrous. Nevertheless, he urges us to put aside our smug presentism. The Victorians were not the wretched victims of sexual repression we may imagine. Rather they were women and men who found in restrictive sexual codes something of value appropriate to their lives. Why else would the repressive codes have endured so long?"

(American Quarterly)

L'autore:

Ronald G. Walters is a professor of history at the Johns Hopkins University.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0801863481
• ISBN 13: 9780801863486
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 185
• Redattore: Walters Ronald G.