City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London

by Judith R. Walkowitz

Book Overview

From tabloid exposes of child prostitution to the grisly tales of Jack the Ripper, narratives of sexual danger pulsated through Victorian London. Expertly blending social history and cultural criticism, Judith Walkowitz shows how these narratives reveal the complex dramas of power, politics, and sexuality that were being played out in late nineteenth-century Britain, and how they influenced the language of politics, journalism, and fiction.

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226871460
• ISBN13: 9780226871462
• Release Date: October 1992
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Excellent book! Sorry, made a mistake and gave only 2 stars before!

Excellent read! This book has everything that we should know about the late Victorian era, especially--but not exclusively--East London. In a nutshell, the writer develops her story of the exciting, but complex and fragmented city into a marvelous journey through the very late Victorian period, the journey that will [un]predictably end in a spate of heinous crimes perpetrated by an elusive killer who could well be--well, anybody. Walkowitz's culmination with the Jack the Ripper case will leave you wondering about the killer's motive as well as the rationale for his crimes.

Fun! for Victorian culture discussion ...

This source is a wonderful discussion on the dark side of Victorian culture. It is easy to read, stays on topic, and makes the stark differences and similarities between our cultures clearly apparent.

Unusual but excellent history of gender and violence

Judith Walkowitz delivers a very engaging history of gender violence, prostitution, and good old Jack the Ripper. Her style is more reminiscent of a novel or short story collection than an academic history, and that works in the narrative's favor. One finds it very easy to go along with her argument, even though it does have some holes in it. The style she adopts makes it easy for her to squeeze events into her hypothesis, and it sometimes feels forced, especially in her repeated attempts to relate everything to "melodrama." The book is well researched, which is most obvious in her discussion of the men and women's club and Georgina Weldon's struggle against the male establishment. Overall, a feminist history that never becomes militant, and a piece of academic work that is accessible to a wider audience than merely women's studies faculty members across the U.S.

A necessity for anyone interested in the era.

This book was critical for me as I wrote a term paper. A wide range of subjects is covered, and each numerous topics of interest are addressed. The text is easy to read- not trivial of negligible, but accessable to almost everyone