This volume offers an overview of what it was like to be female and to live and die in Victorian England (c. 1837-1901), by situating this experience within the scientific and social contexts of the times.

Pamela K. Stone is Visiting Associate Professor of Anthropology at Hampshire College, Amherst, MA, USA.

Lise Shapiro Sanders is Professor of English Literature and Cultural Studies at Hampshire College, Amherst, MA, USA.

1. Introduction; 2. Science, Evolution, and the Female Sex; 3. Girlhood, Adolescence, and Sexuality; 4. The Good Mother and the Proper Wife: Marriage, Pregnancy, and Motherhood; 5.Matriarchs, Menopause, and Death; 6.Victorian Bodies, Modern Issues