In Pamela K. Gilbert’s fascinating—and fascinatingly inventive—new book, Victorian Skin: Surface, Self, History, we learn about the self as surface and the ways in which permeability, alienation, and inscription contribute insights into what it meant to be human in the nineteenth century. The opening question is simple: “What did Victorians talk about when they talked about skin?” This, though, is a question that begets a stream of further questions: “Where is subjectivity located? How do people communicate with and understand each other’s feelings? How does our surface—which contains us, presents us to others, and mediates between our inner materiality and the larger world outside—function and create meaning? And how should that embodied process be represented in literature?” (1). There is obviously a lot here, and fittingly so. This is a big book in length (it runs to 396 pages, excluding bibliography and index) and in its preoccupations. From talk...
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
