Sex in Georgian England: Attitudes and Prejudices from the 1720s to the 1820s by A. D. Harvey

Duckworth, 1994

I snapped up this book on a second-hand stall outside the BFI on the South Bank. It’s an odd one. The opening chapter “Women’s Bodies – and How Men Looked at Them” is a detailed discussion of what Georgians preferred in terms of shape and type of breast (think of those high, pillowy, nipple-less Fragonards in the Wallace Collection). There are some interesting ideas on “The Waning of Female Lust” and “The Deviant”. Definitely worth reading, not least because it contains a good deal of information. Lots of rather rude illustrations.