How to Suppress the Passions: A Comically Annotated Guide to Controlling the Body, Hiding the Ankles, and the Terror of Being Alive (THE VICTORIAN GUIDE TO IMPROPRIETY) - Softcover

Smith, Barnaby

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798247709763

Publisher: Independently published, 2026

Synopsis

"If you feel a 'flutter,' drink a glass of water and think about the Queen."

Welcome to 1890 London—the "Age of Purity," where the human pulse is considered a dangerous liability best managed by cold baths, hard chairs, and a complete refusal to acknowledge how babies are made. In this bitingly satirical and historically rigorous guide, The Married Woman (Looking Back) pulls back the heavy velvet curtains on the Victorian bedroom, revealing a world of "Marital Duties," liquid opium, and the strategic utility of the "Migraine."

Part Victorian social history and part repressive British satire, this book is the definitive history of Victorian manners and sexuality for anyone who suspects that "Respectability" was just a forty-year exercise in holding one's breath. Using 100% real historical documents, including the pseudoscientific medical manuals of Dr. William Acton and 19th-century moral tracts, this volume translates the terrifying silence of the past for the modern reader.

Discover why doctors believed higher education would shrivel a woman’s womb, how "spiked rings" were used to terrify teenage boys into purity, and why the "Rest Cure" was essentially a prison sentence for anyone with an opinion. Whether you're a fan of women's history, The Gilded Age drama, or looking for a humorous gift for history buffs, this guide provides a sharp, cynical look at the fortress of starch that built the British Empire.

Inside this guide to the unlaced breath, you’ll discover:

• The Dangerous Body: Why looking in a mirror for too long was considered a "Gateway Sin" and why pepper was the devil's condiment.

• The Solitary Vice: A look at the medieval-style "anti-onanism devices" and why medical men thought a hollow eye was proof of a moral collapse.

• The Education of Ignorance: Navigating a world where girls were expected to enter marriage with less knowledge of biology than a common gardener.

• Marriage and the "Duty": The Dr. Acton lie—learning to "lie back and think of England" while pretending you don't have a body below the neck.

• Hysteria and the Doctor: How the medical establishment turned female unhappiness into a "uterine dysfunction" treatable by isolation and laudanum.

• Clothing as a Fortress: The engineering of the Crinoline Cage—a five-foot steel barrier designed to keep the world at a safe, sexless distance.

• The New Woman Scandal: The 1890s arrival of the bicycle, the bloomer, and the terrifying realization that women could actually run away.

TL;DR: Excellence is just a word for "we didn't get caught having a human emotion until after the husband died."

Edition details

• Publisher: Independently published
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798247709763
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 119