Okay so Victorian erotica is literally the most heinous, morally bankrupt, horrific shit I’ve ever read - but I’ve read a fair bit, partly from historical interest but also because a while back I helped a friend with a university project she was doing about censorship and pornography in 19th century England.
Anyway I need to share with you all the most hilarious line that has ever been written, circa 1887:
I feel like this excerpt is significantly enhanced by knowing that the novel in question is a first-person narrative written from the perspective of an inexplicably sapient flea who lives on Bella’s body, and that’s why the third priest’s penis is described in this way: from the narrator’s perspective it literally blots out the sky.