Victorian Legs

Victorian Legs studies the science (sometimes spurious) and sexuality (often frivolous) of legs during the Victorian period. Legs occupy a particularly vexed position in Victorian culture. While legs formed the foundation (or the columns) of the civilized subject, only certain legs embodied this model. The social rules of who could show their legs remained gendered, at least for the higher classes. For the most part, men exhibited and admired, while women concealed and demurred. The stage became the generally accepted site for the display of women's legs, witnessing the merger of the athletic and the erotic. Armed with the support of dubious science, white men identified the particular physiology of their legs as evidence of their evolutionary superiority, categorizing non-European legs as degenerative, while concealing women's legs in varying layers of restrictive clothing. In addition to examining the science, sexuality, and even technology of legs during the Victorian period, this book offers close readings of popular novels by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Anthony Trollope, among others. The Victorians obsessed over legs as designators of the hierarchal levels of humanity and as erotic sites with specific rules for concealment and exposure. This book shows that while legs made us human, they could also dehumanize.