Elizabeth Manning (Letters, 19 April), suggests evidence on Victorian tight-lacing is to be found in the pages of the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine. But is it evidence of tight-lacing, or of soft-core porn? Many Victorianists suspect the latter, and that the “letters” from readers were in fact written by the magazine’s editor, Samuel Beeton, husband of the now more famous Mrs Beeton.
If tight-lacing had been as prevalent as these letters suggest, we would expect examples of the tiny-waisted corsets to have survived. For the most part, this is not the case.
Fetishists take heart – sometimes all that is left of history is fantasy. Or fantasies.
Judith Flanders
London
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