Congratulations to Professor Clayton Tarr on the publication of his new book Victorian Legs: Degeneracy, Disability, Decorum, Desire (Manchester UP, 2025).

Congratulations to Professor Clayton Tarr on the publication of his new book Victorian Legs: Degeneracy, Disability, Decorum, Desire (Manchester UP, 2025). Victorian Legs is about the science (sometimes spurious) and sexuality (often frivolous) of legs during the Victorian period. The book argues that legs occupy a particularly vexed position in Victorian culture. Strong legs formed the foundation (or the columns) of the civilized subject, but the politics of who could show their legs remained gendered. For the most part, men exhibited and admired, while women concealed and demurred. This book not only joins and advances the lively critical discourse on the Victorian body, but also marks new paths to pursue. While legs made us human, they could also dehumanize. Professor Tarr is currently serving as the English Department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies. His previous books are Personation Plots: Identity Fraud in Victorian Sensation Fiction (State University of New York Press, 2022) and Peru and Peruvian Tales. By Helen Maria Williams (Ed., with Paula R. Feldman, Broadview Press, 2015), and he has published articles in journals like Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Nineteenth-Century Literature, Studies in English Literature, and Victorian Review.