In any century feelings of superiority about the one before are accompanied or succeeded by feelings of nostalgia, even envy. Fifty years ago we laughed at the Victorians: now we wish we could be more like them. They made life more exciting for themselves than we do. They made sex far more exciting. Or so it may now seem. We wouldn't actually want to be Victorians, but we love now to understand them to the point almost of identification.

LRB 19 June 1986 | PDF Download