Searching the Heart

A vivid exploration of Victorian romantic love that challenges the conventional wisdom about many aspects of 19th-century American private life, this richly provocative book allows us to hear the voices of nearly one hundred 19th-century Americans as they emerge from their surprisingly open, intimate, and emotional love letters. Lystra refutes the common belief that Victorian men and women held passionlessness as an ideal in their romantic relationships. Enabling us to enter the hidden world of Victorian lovers, the letters they left behind offer genuine proof of the intensity of their most private interactions, feelings, behaviors, and judgments.