My Secret Life (memoir)

The title page of a My Secret Life reprint published in 1888

My Secret Life, by "Walter", is the memoir of a gentleman describing the author's sexual development and experiences in Victorian England. It was first published in a private edition of eleven volumes, at the expense of the author, including an imperfect index, which appeared over seven years beginning around 1888.

The work itself is enormous, amounting to over one million words,[1] the eleven original volumes amounting to over 4,000 pages. The text is repetitive and highly disorganised, and the literary quality is negligible,[2] but its frank discussion of sexual matters and other hidden aspects of Victorian life make it a rare and valuable social document. According to Steven Marcus, it is virtually the only source for information on London's houses of prostitution, in which Walter spent many hours. It has been described as "one of the strangest and most obsessive books ever written".[3]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference vict515 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ For an analysis of the original edition's production and Walter's methods of composition, see Steven Marcus, The Other Victorians.
  3. ^ Patrick J. Kearney (1982) A History of Erotic Literature. Parragon: 127