DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Sleeping Beauties in Victorian Britain

Cultural, Literary and Artistic Explorations of a Myth

Béatrice Laurent editor J Barrie Bullen editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften

Published:21st Nov '14

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Sleeping Beauties in Victorian Britain cover

Artists, scientists and the wider public of the Victorian era all seem to have shared a common interest in the myth of the Briar Rose and its contemporary implications, from the Pre-Raphaelites and late Victorian aesthetes to the fascinated crowds who visited Ellen Sadler, the real-life ‘Sleeping Maid’ who is reported to have slept from 1871 to 1880.
The figure of the beautiful reclining female sleeper is a recurring theme in the Victorian imagination, invoking visual, literary and erotic connotations that contribute to a complex range of readings involving aesthetics, gender definitions and contemporary medical opinion. This book compiles and examines a corpus of Sleeping Beauties drawn from Victorian medical reports, literature and the arts and explores the significance of the enduring revival of the myth.

«This volume gives an interesting overview of the topic in various fields of study, so that it may be of interest to scholars specializing not only in literature, but also in history and art history.»
(Julie Sauvage, Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens, 84/2016)

Cercles. Revue pluridisciplinaire du monde anglophone Cercles. Revue pluridisciplinaire du monde anglophone

ISBN: 9783034317450

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 380g

248 pages

New edition