The Illustrated Book of Filthy Victorian Photographs

For every prim little Victorian wife, there existed a veritable army of women who serviced those left outside the circle of wedded bliss and catered for a staggering range of sexual perversions; there were mistresses, models, grand courtesans, brothel madams, and professional prostitutes; there were casual young street prostitutes who might be seamstresses or flower-girls by day and enticing young sirens by night, and of whose age it was best not to enquire too closely.

A fascinating insight into the sex life of the Victorians

The Illustrated Book of Filthy Victorian Photographs contains material no less shocking than what the porn barons of Europe and America are producing today. But it has to be said that distance - and history - lend charm to what are otherwise no more than pornographic photographs. These are 'filthy photographs' that any Port Said street vendor would have given his eye teeth to sell. And Chris Peachment has written a swaggering, rip-roaring erotic romp that brings these fading witnesses to time sharply back into focus.

Every bit as explicit as today's images

The photographers of Victoria's era were pioneers of a new technology; by her reign's end, exactly a century ago, many great - and now famous - images existed. Perhaps less celebrated but far more legendary are the pornographic, 'filthy' photographs of this age. Here a newly-discovered collection of rare prints are illuminated by Chris Peachment's stimulating and hilarious text.

And introducing Lt. "Sugar" Candy

Due to an old war wound, suffered at the hands of the Boers, 1st Lieut. 'Sugar' Candy is left with a strange affliction - a massive and permanent erection. Even when he is taken off to a sophisticated bordello and has run through this establishment's entire perverted repertoire (and staff), his priapic problem remains unsolved. Fortunately it is a point of pride with the brothel's Madame that she should succeed where others have failed...

• Scores of pornographic photographs never previously reproduced
• A centenary celebration (and just a little bit more) of licentious photos and lusty prose
• An exhaustive (as well as exhausting) catalogue of period perversions

Prurience that would even make a tabloid reader's eyes water...

The Daily Telegraph (1857) fulminates: 'young girls furtively peeping into sin-crammed windows... guiltily bending over engravings as vile in execution as they are in subject.'

As we all suspected... beneath a veneer of middle class respectability lurked a heaving mass of juvenile prostitutes, depraved gentlemen, adulterous ladies and stifling bourgeois hypocrisy. And if that all sounds rather similar to today, these two books will give you a fascinating glimpse of how very modern and sophisticated the late Victorians were, sexually speaking. In fact, what seems new and risqué today would have held few surprises for our forefathers - and mothers.