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Co-published by Routledge and Edition Synapse, the History of Feminism series makes key archival source material readily available to scholars, researchers, and students of women’s and gender studies, women’s history, and women’s writing, as well as those working in allied and related fields. Selected and introduced by expert editors, the gathered materials are reproduced in facsimile, giving users a strong sense of immediacy to the texts and permitting citation to the original pagination. This new title in the series brings together in six volumes a unique range of Victorian and Edwardian texts on Women, Beauty, and Fashion.

The learned editor has organized the set around three principal thematic categories (‘Personal Beauty and Care’, ‘Beauty, Fashion, and Health’, and ‘Beauty Education and Self-Management’) which move chronologically from the late 1830s to the 1910s. The materials gathered here are representative of the body of texts written on beauty and fashion with reference to women’s (self-) perception and (self-) definition. Combining the issues of fashion with those of economy, education, and physical culture, the collection offers a range of diverging views. The diversity of the gathered materials is mirrored in their generic range and in the varied professional background of their authors. The collection includes, but is not limited to, religious treatises and dress reformers’ pamphlets, personal-care manuals by society ladies, advice books by (alleged) specialists, and manufacturers’ attempts at self-advertising.

Making readily available materials which are currently very difficult for scholars, researchers, and students across the globe to locate and use, Women, Beauty, and Fashion is a veritable treasure-trove. The gathered works are reproduced in facsimile, giving users a strong sense of immediacy to the texts and permitting citation to the original pagination. Each volume is also supplemented by substantial introductions, newly written by the editor, which contextualize the material. And with a detailed appendix providing data on the provenance of the gathered works, the collection is destined to be welcomed as a vital reference and research resource.

Women, Beauty, and Fashion - muu, Englanti, 2014