Street Life in 19th Century Victorian London (A Photo Documentary of Hard Lives)

A Brief History Of London In The Victorian Era (19th Century)

During the early and mid-Victorian era, a great many health and beauty books echoed the popular 19th century sentiment that plumpness equaled good health. It was leanness, not heaviness, to which beauty experts directed the majority of their criticism. For example, in his 1870 book Personal Beauty: How to Cultivate and Preserve it in Accordance with the Laws of Health, author Daniel Brinton states that a “scrawny bony figure” is “intolerable to gods and men.” From Mimi Matthews excellent blog. T