Bizarre Victorians: A Gallery

The Victorian Era: Corsets, top hats and all of that extreme obsession for proper manners and behavior ... Or?

Most of what we know about the Victorians is that they were a bunch of uptight prudes. All the pictures we ever see from the XIX century are those in which people pose with an iconic and severe seriousness or the quite disturbing and very famous at the time 'post mortem' photographies. Were people not allowed to smile on pictures? Did people smile at all?

It's true that they had some absurd, insane and earnest rules such as: husbands and wives could refer to each other by their first names only when at home and alone. Or: at a party, guests were expected to remain until the guest of honor left. Yet perhaps this rigorous hardship wasn't all there is to know.

This photographic gallery consisting of four pages shows us the side of the Victorians which we not only never saw, heard or read about, but also the humorous qualities that we'd never imagine them to possibly have.