Acknowledgements

I would like to express my thanks to the staff at the British Library, to Rebecca Storr and Rory Cook of the Science Museum for their help and support in tracing all manner of surprising Victorian sexual ephemera, and to Dr Chris Naunton and the Egypt Exploration Society for the eleventh-hour Flinders Petrie revelations. I am grateful to both the British Newspaper Archive and Queen Victoria’s Journals Online for allowing me to include quotations from their unique archives. Special thanks go to Beverley Cook of the Museum of London for her advice and knowledge, and my supervisor, Dr Paul Readman, for allowing me the precious time needed away from my PhD to complete this book.

To the community of historians around the world who have taken an interest in this book and who have continually sent me references and recipes – my grateful thanks. Charlie Tanner, Johanna Gummet and Fflur Huysmanns – your help and support were incredible. My gratitude also goes to John Gallagher and Maxime Ducrue for proofreading and translation. Any mistakes found in this book are my own.

I extend thanks to my brilliant editor, Jen Newby, to Steven Kirk for his beautiful illustrations, and to publishers Pen & Sword for being the first to take a chance on a new author.

I dedicate this book to my family.