Representations of Hair in Victorian Literature and Culture

Galia Ofek''s wide-ranging study elucidates the historical, artistic, literary, and theoretical meanings of the Victorians'' preoccupation with hair. Victorian writers and artists, Ofek argues, had a well-developed awareness of fetishism as an overinvestment of value in a specific body part and were fully cognizant of hair''s symbolic resonance and its value as an object of commerce. In particular...