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Tipping The Velvet

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Tipping The Velvet

By: Sarah Waters
Narrated by: Juanita McMahon
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About this listen

 Piercing the shadows of the naked stage was a single shaft of rosy limelight, and in the centre of this was a girl: the most marvellous girl - I knew it at once! - that I had ever seen.

A saucy, sensuous and multi-layered historical romance, Tipping the Velvet follows the glittering career of Nan King - oyster girl turned music-hall star turned rent boy turned East End 'tom'.©1998 Sarah Waters Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction LGBTQIA+ Creators Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Romance Victorian Women's Voices

Critic reviews

Intelligent, witty and stylish, the novel re-imagines a lost lesbian history through vivid sensual detail, evocative period slang (the title is a sexual euphemism) and a satisfyingly complex plot
Waters is an extremely confident writer, combining precise, sensuous descriptions with irony and wit. This is a lively, gutsy, highly readable debut
An unstoppable read, a sexy and picaresque romp through the lesbian and queer demi-monde of the roaring Nineties. Imagine Jeanette Winterson on a good day collaborating with Judith Butler to pen a Sapphic Moll Flanders. It's gorgeous
This could be the most important debut of its kind since that of Jeanette Winterson
An extremely confident writer, combining precise, sensuous descriptions with irony and wit in a skilled, multi-layered pastiche of the lesbian historical romance (Christina Patterson)
Erotic and absorbing... Written with startling power
Wonderful... a sensual experience that leaves the reader marveling at the author's craftsmanship, idiosyncrasy, and sheer effort
Compelling... readers of all sexes and orientations should identify with this gutsy hero as she learns who she is and how to love
Delectable... written in roguishly lilting prose filled with the sights, sounds and stenches of London street life
Glorious... an exceptional debut
Richly entertaining... Waters's debut offers terrific entertainment: swiftly paced, crammed with colorful depictions of 1890s London and vividly sketched Dickensian supporting characters, pulsating with highly charged (and explicitly presented) erotic heat
This lush tale fearlessly and feverishly exposes the political, social and sexual subversions of Victorian-era gender-benders: sapphists, libertines and passing women... Waters is a masterful storyteller... Nancy's search for love and identity is a raucous, passionate adventure and a rare, thrilling read
If you need your smut to be smart as well as steamy, Waters' 1998 debut might be right up your alley, so to speak. Imagine if Charles Dickens had been brave enough to centre lesbians and strap-ons in his work, and you're getting somewhere close to the brutal beauty and acerbic wit Waters conjures up on every page
Groundbreaking . . . the way Waters writes female desire is enjoyable, to quote one gay woman of my acquaintance, "regardless of persuasion" (Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett)
All stars
Most relevant
Great story and audio book. narrator really brings it to life and last 3rd of book is particularly good.

brilliant narrator

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Keeps your attention throughout. Much preferred this to Affinity, which was the last Sarah Waters book that I read.

Definitely recommend.

Well written, excellent plot.

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This was a sexy joy of a book, beautifully written and read with gusto, in a perfect Kent/London accent. As Nancy discovers her sexuality we accompany her through relationships and variously dubious jobs as she grows into her self-knowledge and values. All against the background of lesbian life in Victorian London. A real treat.

Sexy Victorian pleasure

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Great story, really evocative of the period, with terrific narration.
A bit saucy (don't listen to it with your mum!)

Another joy

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delightful read, loved every second of it, sensual, and heartbreakingly real. a Wonderful piece of prose

smouldering

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