The Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture

by Nadja Durbach (Author)

• New

  Illustrated
  2009

  $77.02

  In 1847, during the great age of the freak show, the British periodical Punch bemoaned the public's 'prevailing taste for deformity'. This work argues that far from being purely exploitative, displays of anomalous bodies served a deeper social purpose as they generated popular and scientific debates over the meanings attached to bodily difference.