The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel

About the book

Presented as the recollections of Charlie Roberts, this four-volume work replaces the usual moral education of a coming-of-age narrative with an accumulation of sexual episodes. Family relationships, domestic employment, and private correspondence supply the organizing connections between its characters. The text includes sexual exploitation of minors, incest, and coercion; these are central to its historical character rather than incidental details. Its repeated insistence on gratification makes it an unreliable representation of ordinary Victorian experience. A critical reading can instead examine how anonymous pornography appropriates the forms of memoir and intimate letters, erases or distorts consent, and turns social hierarchies into narrative opportunities. The retained text identifies an 1892 edition, while its authorship remains anonymous in the catalog.

• Anonymous print culture
• Narrative and consent
• The distortion of social relationships

Why read it

For historical study, its memoir framework offers evidence of how clandestine fiction manufactured claims to intimate authenticity.

English four-volume text identified in its heading as the 1892 edition