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Stephen Fry's Victorian Secrets By cover art

Stephen Fry's Victorian Secrets

By: Stephen Fry, John Woolf, Nick Baker
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  • Summary

  • "

    On the surface, the Victorian age is one of propriety, industry, prudishness and piety. But scratch the surface and you'll find scandal, sadism, sex, madness, malice and murder.

    Presented by Stephen Fry, this series delves deep into a period of time we think we know, to discover an altogether darker reality. The stories we're told offer a different perspective on an era which underwent massive social change. As education, trade, technology and culture blossomed, why was there an undercurrent of the ""Àúforbidden' festering beneath Victorian society?

    Across 12 episodes, Stephen presents a series of true accounts of the dangerous low life and debauched high life of Victorian Britain.

    This is an Audible Original Podcast. You can download all 12 episodes to your Library now.

    "
    ©2018 Audible, Ltd. (P)2018 Audible, Ltd.
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Episodes
  • Ep. 1: Family Secrets

    Ep. 1: Family Secrets
    Oct 18 2018

    Of course, all families, high born and low have secrets. Confidential conditions of mind or body. Black sheep. Skeletons in cupboards. Unmentionable uncles. Naughty nephews... aunties who aren't... conventional. More often than not it boils down to something - sexual.

    This episode is about the keeping and uncovering of family secrets. In a way it unlocks all the secrets in all our episodes.

    Many Victorians, especially the more successful ones, feared shame. In a way this fear was something quite new. A new and growing newspaper industry was keen to amplify that shame. And a new middle class, desperate to cling to its new-found monied status, felt threatened. And, new theories about heredity, coming later in the century, meant that (perish the thought!) shamefulness could be passed on – like red hair or big feet - from generation to generation.
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    44 mins
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  • Ep. 2: The Buckingham Palace Freak Show

    Ep. 2: The Buckingham Palace Freak Show
    Oct 18 2018

    Step right up, step right up and don’t be shy - welcome to Victorian Secrets, and the secrets of... The Freak Show. The secrets of enormously fat men and bearded ladies, the secrets of exotic women with enticingly large buttocks, the secrets of Siamese Twins and dwarf families and, in particular, the secrets of our own, our very own Aztec Children, seen by half a million people on the European continent before they publicly revealed their own, personal, extraordinary secret.

    We’ll go backstage to hear the terrible secrets of the freaks themselves, we’ll lift the lace curtains of Buckingham Palace, where our own Queen, god bless her, took tea with the tiny, the towering and the terribly formed.
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    37 mins
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  • Ep. 3: Pornography, Pleasure and the Press

    Ep. 3: Pornography, Pleasure and the Press
    Oct 18 2018

    This episode will penetrate some of the secrets of Victorian sexuality, public and private and will challenge some deeply held misconceptions.

    We tend to think of the Victorians as dyed in the wool prudes, and we have latched onto the idea that the Victorians felt their values of self-discipline, temperance and hard work were threatened by the temptations of the flesh. This episode will show in enjoyable detail that ordinary Victorians’ attitudes to sex was for the most part enthusiastic, unembarrassed and surprisingly well informed. Apart, that is, from one secret sexual practice that was loathed, feared and tragically misunderstood.
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    34 mins
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Great Britain Victorian History
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Featured Article: The Best History Podcasts of All Time


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What listeners say about Stephen Fry's Victorian Secrets

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Profile Image for Noelle

So enjoyable

And informative. A must listen for Victorian Era history buffs!!
Start at the first episode and just let it play..

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Profile Image for A. Watman

This is fascinating and fun!

I love this podcast! It’s really interesting, and something different from most of the history related podcasts. We have this view of the Victorians as being these stuffy, sexually repressed people, but the stories here make me wonder how that perspective came about.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Profile Image for Jenny

Fun, enlightening, and well narrated

I was excited to see Stephen Fry narrating something new because I’ve liked everything he has read aloud. The pacing of this series was engaging, making each episode seem to quickly go by. The added theatrics (music, additional voice actors, sound effects) were fun, and they were used in the right quantities to spice up the podcast without being annoying. The information was interesting and well delivered. I often shared the details I’d learned from the podcast with friends and family, and they were entertained and interested in the bits of new knowledge about the era. Overall, this was fun, entertaining, engaging, and quick.

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9 people found this helpful

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Profile Image for Callandra

excellent, as to be expected from Fry

As per usual, Stephen Fry's offerings were entertaining and informative. Looking forward to listening to the follow-up Edwardian series.

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4 people found this helpful

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Profile Image for P. Schroeder

Informative and Fun

This series was fun, insightful, and engrossing. I listened to all 12 episodes within 24hrs and wish there were more.

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15 people found this helpful

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Profile Image for Valérie

Quite Enjoyable

I'm starting to think that Stephen Fry is incapable of being dull, These episodes are all interesting, enjoyable and quite informative.

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4 people found this helpful

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Profile Image for Karina

Excellent listening!

I really enjoyed listening to this podcast and learnt a great deal about life in Victorian times. I note that some listeners complained about the music but I think it helps transport the listener to the time in question and I feel the stories would not have been as successful without it.

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Profile Image for KATHERINE LIM

very entertaining

really enjoyed these podcasts. Stephen fry as usual was crisp, clear and very theatrical in a good way.

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Profile Image for B. Wolfe

Stephen Fry is as wonderful as always

I have mixed feelings about this series. It’s maybe 1/3 entertainingly told social history and 2/3 more doubtfully motivated playing into the kind of prurient gutter and freakshow interests it’s partly describing. That might’ve been exactly the intention — some of the best British humour mixes the high and the low in this way — so maybe it’s not exactly a criticism. Just know what you’re getting.

Amid worthwhile historical details and observations, expect to spend a lot of time with public hangings. changing sexual mores and practices. female serial killers and bodily functions. It’s all decently interesting and well presented, it just edges into being tabloid-y in its taste and emphasis — a contrast to Fry’s exquisite English.

I found the “Edwardian Secrets” series that follows more successful and balanced, with a greater depth of social history, humanity and compassion woven into still-somewhat-similar sorts of stories.

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  • AE
  • 10-24-21

love it

excellent story and well narrated. truly enjoyable, highly recommend. please note: not for children.

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