"Pleasure Bound shines a sensitive light into the darker corners of Victorian sexuality. The sometimes subtle, sometimes consuming interplay of sensuality and death; the danger and draw of sexual transgression; the irresistible lure of forbidden pleasure
through their erotic longings and adventures, the Victorian sex rebels lead us to the heart of a struggle for authentic sexual expression in an era ... Read moreof repression now past. Or is it?"
Patricia Anderson, Ph.D., author of When Passion Reigned: Sex and the Victorians "Pleasure Bound is a lively, readable and informative survey of the sometimes surprising connections between art, literature, and the sexual underworld in Victorian England."
David Lodge, author of Deaf Sentence "As seductive as a Swinburne sapphic, Pleasure Bound is for the casual reader, the aesthete and the pleasure seeker alike. If there wasn't a scholarly excuse for reading it, you'd feel guilty for having so much fun. Just don't leave it lying around."
Wesley Stace, author of Misfortune "Using a deft combination of biography, aesthetic analysis, and cultural commentary, Pleasure Bound offers a history of those Victorian writers and artists who lived—and sometimes died—for the conjoined cause of eros and art. The result is a bawdy, intricate, edifying, and sometimes heartbreaking book that sheds light on a fascinating constellation of creators, without ever losing sight of the importance of keeping—as Lutz sagely puts it
'the dark core dark.'"
Maggie Nelson, author of The Art of Cruelty "A delightful spree through Victorian England's red-light district, Deborah Lutz's Pleasure Bound explores in lucid and engaging prose the pornographic underpinnings of nineteenth-century British art, poetry, and anthropology."
Matthew Kaiser, Harvard University "It is unusual to find a history of sex that is both readable and erudite. Deborah Lutz’s Pleasure Bound is a delightful romp between the legs—and elsewhere—of Victorian England that offers a deeply penetrating gaze into its sexual subjects."
Frederick S. Roden, author of Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Religious Culture "A polished, thought-provoking, and original work of history that possesses all the finesse of literature."
Simon Van Booy, author of The Secret Lives of People in Love Show Less