Consuming Female Beauty

Michelle J. Smith is an Associate Professor in Literary Studies at Monash University, Australia. Her most recent monograph is Consuming Female Beauty: British Literature and Periodicals, 1840–1914 (Edinburgh University Press, 2022). In the field of children’s literature, she is the author of From Colonial to Modern: Transnational Girlhood in Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand Children’s Literature, 1840–1940 (University of Toronto Press, 2018, with Clare Bradford and Kristine Moruzi) and Empire in British Girls’ Literature and Culture: Imperial Girls, 1880–1915 (Palgrave, 2011). Her co-edited collections include Literary Cultures and Nineteenth-Century Childhoods (Palgrave, in press), Young Adult Gothic Fiction: Monstrous Selves/Monstrous Others (University of Wales Press, 2021), Victorian Environments: Acclimatizing to Change in British Domestic and Colonial Culture (Palgrave, 2018), Affect, Emotion and Children’s Literature: Representation and Socialisation in Texts for Children and Young Adults (Routledge, 2017), Colonial Girlhood in Literature, Culture and History, 1840–1950 (Palgrave, 2014), and Girls’ School Stories, 1749–1929 (Routledge, 2013).

In this innovative work, Michelle J. Smith sheds new light on the rise of the beauty industry in Great Britain from　1840 to 1914. To illuminate this rich history, she examines a wealth of hitherto overlooked sources, including advertisements, novels, women's magazines, juvenile periodicals and beauty manuals. The first study of its kind,　Consuming Female Beauty promises to transform scholarly understanding of gender, beauty and print culture during the Victorian era and beyond.

• 1. Introduction Part I: Nature vs. Artifice2. The Impossible Ideal: Beauty, Health, and Character3. The Dark Side of Beauty: Cosmetics, Artifice, and DangerPart II: Youth and Ageing4. Beauty and Girlhood5. Beauty and AgeingPart III: Reshaping Female Beauty 6. The Celebrity as Beauty Icon7. Embracing the Beauty Regimen in British and American Women’s MagazinesConclusion