BOOK REVIEW: Lisa Z. Sigel.GOVERNING PLEASURES: PORNOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN ENGLAND, 1815-1914. New Brunswick, NJ and London: Rutgers University Press, 2002.

Abstract

In Sarah Waters's novel Fingersmith (2002), modeled in part on "erotomaniac" and pornographic bibliographer Henry Spencer Ashbee, the character who believes herself to be Maud Lilly is raised by her uncle to act as secretary to his project to archive an extensive collection of "dirty books." When she first enters her uncle's library at the age of thirteen, he shows her—embedded in the floor—a brass hand with a finger pointing towards the shelves. "These are uncommon books, Miss Maud, and not for ordinary gazes," he tells her. "That hand marks the bounds of innocence here" ([Virago, 2002]: 188). [End Page 777]