Synopses & Reviews
The New York Times bestselling, "hysterically funny and unsettlingly fascinating" (Jenny Lawson) guide to the secrets of Victorian womanhood.
Have you ever wished you could live in an earlier, more romantic era? Ladies, welcome to the 19th century, where there's arsenic in your face cream, a pot of cold pee sits under your bed, and all of your underwear is crotchless. (Why? Shush, dear. A lady doesn't question.)
UNMENTIONABLE is your hilarious, scandalously honest (though never crass), illustrated guide to life as a Victorian lady, offering detailed advice on:
What to wear
Where to relieve yourself
How to conceal your loathsome addiction to menstruating
What to expect on your wedding night
How to be the perfect Victorian wife
Why masturbating will kill you
And more
Irresistibly charming, laugh-out-loud funny, and featuring nearly 200 images from Victorian publications, UNMENTIONABLE will inspire a whole new level of respect for Elizabeth Bennett, Scarlet O'Hara, Jane Eyre, and all of our great, great grandmothers.
(And it just might leave you feeling ecstatically grateful to live in an age of pants, super absorbency tampons, epidurals, anti-depressants, and not-dying-of-the-syphilis-your-husband-brought-home.)
Review
"Oh, did Constant Reader's heart lift after turning page the first. It's hard to imagine a woman - or a teenage girl - who won't love this book." The Washington Post
Review
"Oneill has created a book so excellently informative about the Victorian period, it should be shelved right next to Dickens for reference. Your stomach will hurt so much from laughing, you'll be thankful you're not wearing a corset." Bustle
Review
"Unmentionable transports us back to the world of middle-class 19th-century women, with special emphasis on the messy details that costume dramas airbrush out...With a 4-year-old's scatological glee, Oneill details the logistics of old-time peeing, pooping, gestating, menstruating and mating...For Oneill, Victorian time travel is a tour of horrors that makes us thankful to come home to tampons and toilets." New York Times
Review
"Oneill uncovers the filthy, untidy, licentious conditions of nineteenth-century women's lives that novelists of the period often glossed over...brilliantly conveyed with fascinating illustrations." Elle
About the Author
Therese Oneill lives in Oregon and writes humor and rare history articles for many different popular outlets, including Mental Floss, The Week, The Atlantic, and Jezebel. She lives with her husband and children near Portland.