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Sam Bailey

Doctoral Student in Literature - Sam’s thesis is entitled ‘The Erotic Book Trade in England, 1660-1750'

Research Project Title:

The Erotic Book Trade in England, 1660-1750

 

Supervisors:

Dr Joseph Hone and Professor Kate Chedgzoy

Contact Details:

Email: s.bailey4@ncl.ac.uk 

 

Research Interests:

  • Descriptive bibliography
  • Queer & Trans* studies
  • Pornography studies
  • Book history
  • The history of sex and gender
  • The history of reading practices
  • Eighteenth-century print culture
  • Eroticism in the eighteenth century

Brief Outline of Research Project:

My project examines the production, transmission and consumption of erotic print from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century. I bring together the methods of descriptive bibliography and queer studies to newly consider the role of pornography in the sexual politics of this period. I am interested primarily in who interacted with pornography in this period, and how they did so. Much of the focus of pornography studies has been on a private, usually male, individual reading novels for sexual pleasure in the comfort of his own home. I seek to reassess this figure as the icon of eighteenth-century pornography studies and instead focus on how pornography was made by multiple collaborating hands; how it was sold in shop windows and on the street; and how it was read in the company of others, in clubs, coffee houses, and taverns.

Research Activities:

Academic Background:

  • MLitt English Literature, Newcastle University (2021)
  • BA Hons English Literature, Newcastle University (2020)
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