Fanny and Stella
- 416 pages
- 15 hours of reading
'Uproarious.' The Times'Terrifically entertaining.' Evening Standard'Irresistible.' Daily Mail'Gripping.' Sunday TelegraphLondon, April 1870: Fanny and Stella were no ordinary Victorian women.
Neil McKenna Book order
Neil McKenna has emerged as one of the most exciting and distinctive voices in modern British biography. His writing masterfully combines rigorous research, insightful analysis, and profound understanding with a dazzlingly lucid and accessible style. McKenna is known for uncovering previously unexplored facets of significant lives, often bringing fresh perspectives to familiar narratives. His literary approach is marked by meticulous attention to detail and a remarkable ability to present complex subjects in a readable and engaging manner, offering readers unforgettable literary experiences.
- 2023
- 2014
28th April 1870. Fanny and Stella, the flamboyantly dressed Miss Fanny Park and Miss Stella Boulton, are causing a stir in the Strand Theatre. All eyes are riveted upon their lascivious oglings of the gentlemen in the stalls. Moments later they are led away by the police. What followed was a scandal that shocked and titillated Victorian England in equal measure.It turned out that the alluring Miss Fanny Park and Miss Stella Boulton were no ordinary young women. Far from it. In fact, 'Boulton and Park' were young men who liked to dress as women. When the Metropolitan Police launched a secret campaign to bring about their downfall, they were arrested and subjected to a sensational show trial in Westminster Hall.As the trial of 'the Young Men in Women's Clothes' unfolded, Fanny and Stella's extraordinary lives as wives and daughters, actresses and whores were revealed to an incredulous public.With a cast of peers, politicians and prostitutes, drag queens, doctors and detectives, Fanny and Stella is a Victorian peepshow, exposing the startling underbelly of nineteenth-century London. By turns tragic and comic, meticulously researched and dazzlingly written, Fanny and Stella is an enthralling tour-de-force.
- 2004
McKenna argues that our view of Oscar Wilde is determined by Victorian sentimentality. He reveals his relationship with Lord Douglas, and tells of Wilde's last days in Paris. The biography is based on the author's discovery of new source material.
