Victorians Undone

Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum

Preview

Failed to add items

Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.

Add to basket failed.

Please try again later

Add to wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Remove from wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Adding to library failed

Please try again

Follow podcast failed

Unfollow podcast failed

LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Get this deal

Offer ends on 15 July 2026 at 11:59 BST.

More purchase options

Victorians Undone

By: Kathryn Hughes

Narrated by: Jenny Funnell

Get this deal

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £16.36

‘Intriguing, gleefully contentious and – appropriately enough – fizzing with life, Victorians Undone is the most original history book I have read in a long while’ Daily Mail

A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR

A groundbreaking account of what it was like to live in a Victorian body from one of our best historians.

Why did the great philosophical novelist George Eliot feel so self-conscious that her right hand was larger than her left?

Exactly what made Darwin grow that iconic beard in 1862, a good five years after his contemporaries had all retired their razors?

Who knew Queen Victoria had a personal hygiene problem as a young woman and the crisis that followed led to a hurried commitment to marry Albert?

What did John Sell Cotman, a handsome drawing room operator who painted some of the most exquisite watercolours the world has ever seen, feel about marrying a woman whose big nose made smart people snigger?

How did a working-class child called Fanny Adams disintegrate into pieces in 1867 before being reassembled into a popular joke, one we still reference today, but would stop, appalled, if we knew its origins?

Kathryn Hughes follows a thickened index finger or deep baritone voice into the realms of social history, medical discourse, aesthetic practise and religious observance – its language is one of admiring glances, cruel sniggers, an implacably turned back. The result is an eye-opening, deeply intelligent, groundbreaking account that brings the Victorians back to life and helps us understand how they lived their lives.

Kathryn HughesJenny FunnellFourth Estate

Europe

Great Britain

Historical

England

Europe Great Britain Historical England

Critic reviews

‘A page-turner … brilliant all the way through. One of the best books I’ve read in ages’ Lucy Worsley, Sunday Express

‘A dazzling experiment in life writing … Every page fizzes with the excitement of fresh discoveries … Each page becomes a window on to a world that is far stranger than we might expect’ Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Guardian

‘It is rich and scholarly, something fascinating to be discovered on every page … Hughes is a thoroughly engaging writer: serious-minded but lively, careful yet passionate… Some of the encounters in its pages, whiffy and indelible, will stay with me for ever’ Rachel Cooke, Observer

‘It is not often I read a book and think “Wow! Every historian of Victorian Britain should read this”. It is a lyrical reflection on the corporeal bodies of Victorian men and women, as well as on the way their fleshiness has become invisible to historians … This is historical storytelling at its very best’ Joanna Bourke, BBC History Magazine

‘A work of formidable scholarship … Reading it is like unravelling the bandages on a mummy to find the face of the past staring back in all its terrible and poignant humanity’ Lucy Lethbridge, Financial Times

‘History so alive you can smell its reek … With her love of bodily detail, Hughes does indeed put the carnal back into biography’ Lisa Appignanesi, Telegraph

‘No one remotely interested in books should miss it’ John Carey, Sunday Times

‘I can’t think of a recent social history I’ve enjoyed more’ The Big Issue

‘Beautifully constructed, narrated not only with wit and gusto, but a clear sense of purpose’ Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday

‘Sex certainly rears its many heads, but so does every other aspect of Victorian life, from farming techniques to court etiquette, dentistry to oil painting’ The Times, Book of The Week

‘Refreshingly unusual … brilliant’ Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times, Books of the Year

Most relevant

Would you try another book written by Kathryn Hughes or narrated by Jenny Funnell?

I'd definitely be interested in more work by this author. This is a good book but important names were completely mispronounced throughout eg Baroness Lehzen. The narrator has a pleasant voice but really should have been given some sort of crib sheet. It spoiled my listening as I kept being jolted by pronunciation howlers. In works of non-fiction getting names right really matters. I'd listen to Jenny Funnell again, but reading a novel, not non-fiction.

What did you like best about this story?

The premise of the book is an interesting one and the way various eminent Victorians popped in and out of different chapters was engaging. I learned a lot about fascinating aspects of Victorian society that are rarely considered.

Who might you have cast as narrator instead of Jenny Funnell?

I would have liked to hear the author narrate this book. I think Jenny Funnell has a lovely voice but whoever produced this should have corrected pronunciation mistakes. It wasn't just names (Montevideo made me laugh though) but words like 'archipelago'. It came over as very sloppy production.

Did Victorians Undone: Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum inspire you to do anything?

I was inspired to write my first review because I think non-fiction should be produced well. This isn't a throwaway bit of frothy fiction. Non-fiction should be read with more care. To get historical names so very wrong (Euclid sounded like he'd been in a skating accident) is not fair on the author, the listener or the hapless narrator. I blame the producer.

Any additional comments?

Had it not been for the engaging content I would have returned it halfway through the first chapter. As it was I did a lot of wincing.