Tag Archives: Victorian

BOOK: “Venus in India” by Charles Devereaux

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Venus in India or Love Adventures in HindustanVenus in India or Love Adventures in Hindustan by Charles Devereaux
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Available online – Wikisource

This novel is presented as the erotically-charged memoir of a British military officer stationed in India. While separated from his wife by his assignment, he has a couple major (and many minor) dalliances with other women, one with the loose wife of another officer and the other the daughter of his commanding officer — who he is charged with mentoring.

Compared with other Victorian erotica, this book does have more story and character development than other books with which I’m familiar. In other words, what goes on between the sheets (or in the grass or on a table) is not the sum total of the book. Interesting events happen outside the sex and there is at least the pretense of emotional arcs for important characters. This makes the book feel more like a true memoir rather than a collection of “Dear Penthouse” tales.

If you like stories of the historic ex-pat life and / or Victorian erotica, you’ll likely enjoy this book.

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“Meeting at Night” by Robert Browning [w/ Audio]

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I
The grey sea and the long black land;
 And the yellow half-moon large and low;
 And the startled little waves that leap
 In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
 As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
 And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

II
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
 Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
 A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
 And blue spurt of a lighted match,
 And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,
 Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Limerick of Richard Dadd

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Titania Sleeping (1857); Richard Dadd
An English painter named Richard Dadd
 went completely stark raving madd.
  He stayed in asylums -
  Broadmoor to Bedlam.
 For stabbing to death his dear old dadd.