> Skip to content
The Pleasures of Men
  • Published: 19 January 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141966502
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 416

The Pleasures of Men




A thrilling Gothic novel for fans of Sarah Waters

Spitalfields, 1840.

Catherine Sorgeiul lives with her Uncle in a rambling house in London's East End. When a murderer strikes, ripping open the chests of young girls and stuffing hair into their mouths to resemble a beak, Catherine is both horrified and fascinated.

As the murders continue to panic the city, however, she gradually realizes she is snared in a deadly trap, where nothing is as it first appears -- for lurking behind the lies Catherine has been told are secrets more deadly and devastating than anything her imagination can conjure.

  • Published: 19 January 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141966502
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 416

About the author

Kate Williams

Kate Williams is an author, social historian and broadcaster. She fell in love with history whilst studying for her BA and DPhil at the University of Oxford and has MAs from Queen Mary and Royal Holloway. She is a Professor of History and appears regularly on television – she recently presented The Stuarts, is the in-house historian and royal expert for CNN, and has appeared on programmes from The Great British Bake Off to election coverage and comedy panel shows. She has written five historical biographies and a series of historical novels, and loves nothing more than a spending her time in dusty archives.

Also by Kate Williams

See all

Praise for The Pleasures of Men

A wonderfully ripe, imaginative and gripping

The Times

Intense, intelligent and hugely entertaining

The Guardian

Fans of Sarah Waters will love this

Good Housekeeping

Spine-tingling and seductive

Woman&Home

Pitch-perfect . . . This intoxicating and disturbing novel is properly thrilling and extraordinarily well-written

Independent on Sunday

A dark story of murder and obsession

Elle

An eerie murder mystery set in the corrupt heart of Victorian London

Marie Claire Good Book Club pick

Compulsively readable

Sunday Times

Part-bodice-ripper, part-slasher, the book's elaborate plot moves along at a brisk clip with a nod to the likes of Sarah Waters and Peter Ackroyd

Daily Mail

A sure-footed evocation of seamy Victorian London

The Sunday Telegraph

A sinister picture of a country, and protagonist, on the brink of hysteria

Psychologies

As crowded with sensation as a Victorian parlour with furniture

The Scotsman

A spider's web of a plot and a spine-tingling atmosphere of menace and suspense

The Times

Mesmerising, elegant and compelling

The Lady