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Queen Victoria's Men |
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Dickens' Secret Lover | Upstairs Downstairs Love
Dickens' Secret Lover | Upstairs Downstairs Love
Upstairs Downstairs Love
The remarkable real-life story of Arthur Munby and his maid-servant, Hannah Cullwick, whose secret relationship and eventual marriage broke all the codes of Victorian social class.
Though outwardly a conventional master and servant, privately Munby and Cullwick carried on an obsessive love affair lasting 50 years. But it is the intense and erotic nature of their hidden affair that will surprise even our modern sensibilities. Secret diaries and photographs kept by the couple describe ritualised acts of role-playing and cross dressing, culminating in Munby's fetishised obsession with Hannah's lowly work and the dirt and drudgery it entailed.
Against the backdrop of nineteenth-century morality, it's an extraordinary case study of the private realities of Victorian class and desire.
The remarkable real-life story of Arthur Munby and his maid-servant, Hannah Cullwick, whose secret relationship and eventual marriage broke all the codes of Victorian social class.
Though outwardly a conventional master and servant, privately Munby and Cullwick carried on an obsessive love affair lasting 50 years. But it is the intense and erotic nature of their hidden affair that will surprise even our modern sensibilities. Secret diaries and photographs kept by the couple describe ritualised acts of role-playing and cross dressing, culminating in Munby's fetishised obsession with Hannah's lowly work and the dirt and drudgery it entailed.
Against the backdrop of nineteenth-century morality, it's an extraordinary case study of the private realities of Victorian class and desire.
Read feature by historian Diane Atkinson, author of 'Love & Dirt: The Marriage of Arthur Munby and Hannah Cullwick'
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