Book review: sex, crime and literature in Victorian England by Ian Ward

The Victorians worried about many things, prominent among their worries being the ‘condition’ of England and the ‘question’ of its women. Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian England aims to revisit these particular anxieties, concentrating more closely upon four ‘crimes’ which generated especial concern among contemporaries: adultery, bigamy, infanticide and prostitution. This book encourages us to question and critique not only the complex and often contradictory Victorian responses to sex and crime, but also to reflect on the ‘condition’ of our country today. Through the interweaving of issues of law, violence, sex, criminality, and misogyny, Ward produces a book ‘about’ much more than a nation’s salaciousness, writes Sophie Franklin.