This is the sort of book for which the star rating is not so much for the cumulative effect, but gets awarded a star per chapter. I enjoyed, and felt I learned something new from the chapter on Darwin's beard and George Eliot's (or rather, Mary Ann Evans') hand. I felt the chapter on Queen Victoria's heartless treatment of Lady Flora Hastings has been done better elsewhere. The chapters on Sweet Fanny Adams and Pre-Raphaelite model and courtesan Fanny Cornforth were meandering, without the pay-off the author promised.

Felt like a great idea scribbled on the back of an envelope, and the author had trouble finding the requisite examples to fit her thesis.

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