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    Tipping the Velvet: A Novel
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    Tipping the Velvet: A Novel
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    Tipping the Velvet: A Novel
    Ebook569 pages10 hours

    Tipping the Velvet: A Novel

    By Sarah Waters

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    “Erotic and absorbing…Written with startling power.”—The New York Times Book Review
     
    Nan King, an oyster girl, is captivated by the music hall phenomenon Kitty Butler, a male impersonator extraordinaire treading the boards in Canterbury. Through a friend at the box office, Nan manages to visit all her shows and finally meet her heroine. Soon after, she becomes Kitty's dresser and the two head for the bright lights of Leicester Square where they begin a glittering career as music-hall stars in an all-singing and dancing double act. At the same time, behind closed doors, they admit their attraction to each other and their affair begins.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Group
    Release dateMay 1, 2000
    ISBN9781101078198
    Author

    Sarah Waters

    Sarah Waters nació en Gales, Gran Bretaña, en 1966. Estudió literatura inglesa en las universidades de Kent y Lancaster, y ha publicado artículos sobre género, sexualidad e historia en revistas como Feminist Review, Journal of the History of Sexuality y Science as Culture. En enero de 2003 fue seleccionada por la revista Granta en su lista decenal de los Young British Novelists.

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    • 5/5
      While not the first book I've read by Sarah Waters, Tipping the Velvet is her wonderful debut novel. Like all of the books she has written so far, her first was nominated for numerous awards in addition to winning several. Waters well deserves these honors--she is a fabulous writer and one of the few authors that I will seek out and read anything that she has written.Nancy Astley is an oyster-girl from Whitstable in the late 1800s. She falls in love with Kitty Butler, a talented male impersonator, and ends up following her to London as her friend and dresser. She leaves her home and beloved family for the sensationalism of the music halls only to have her heart broken. Told in three parts, the novel follows Nan's sexual awakening and her experiences living in London--from the music halls, to the streets, and beyond--but ultimately it is a love story.Interestingly, Nan never seemed to really struggle with her sexuality (which is somewhat refreshing) while her family and those around her often did. However, while not accepted by society as a whole, there were some sectors where being a tom and other sorts of "deviancies" were not only accepted but were celebrated.Waters' writing is extraordinarily evocative and sensual. She doesn't shy away from provocative subjects and certain scenes are down right erotic. As I've come to expect, she has created an incredibly mesmerizing atmosphere--in this case, she explores the diversity of lesbianism in Victorian England in general and in the London area specifically. Though not particularly fast paced, and at times quite slow and fairly uneven, it still moved along rather enjoyably. The book was marvelous and I was far from disappointed. It is dangerous to pick up to read when you have other things that need to be done--once I had, I didn't want to put it down until it was finished.Experiments in Reading
    • 4/5
      Tipping the Velvet is the story of Nancy, discovering her sexuality and eventually finding love. She leaves her family and settled life in a Victorian oyster kitchen to go to London with a music hall star. Head over heels in love, her heart is broken when she walks in on Kitty with her agent. The rest of the book chronicles Nancy putting herself back together again, and making a few poor choices along the way, until she finally finds True Love.I enjoyed this more than Fingersmith. In part because the relationships felt much more honest – the story is broadly ‘find out who you are and learn about what is bad for you, so you can appreciate a good thing when you get it’, or maybe ‘you can love truly and still learn to love again’. It was much more reassuring than Fingersmith’s ‘they’re both a bit shitty, but yay, they end up together’. It’s also a much more explicit book – if you were choosing a novel because you wanted lesbian erotica, I felt Tipping the Velvet delivered to the spec more. The treatment of the cruel rich lesbians of London is uncomfortable. They are awful – must relationships always end up awful with such a power imbalance? Is there any way Diana can be who she is and want what she wants without hurting people?The story is colourful and engaging – mashers and toms and gay girls. It is a lesbian novel – there is no framing that Nancy, with her love of girls, short hair, man’s clothing and spell as a rent boy is a trans man. She loves her Flo, and they are toms, and the other toms accept them and know them.It is a very romanticised book. It is hard to believe Flo’s kind heart wouldn’t have left her broken long before Nancy rocks up into her life. And I want to believe Victorian London had lots of happy, content, Socialist Lesbians, living with their partners and going to the pub, but it seems a little unlikely.It is a book about women, and so there is some mention of miscarriage – Kittle has lost a baby (mostly in a token mentioned-as-a-aside way, so we know she’s Not Happy Now), Nancy lies about a miscarriage to get Flo’s sympathy, and the woman Flo loved died in childbirth.There is a strong theme of not being ashamed of who you love – it is Kitty’s major flaw that she is, and Flo’s great strength that she is not. The final scene should be ridiculous – Everyone TM turns up at the same event, and Nancy Saves The Day by giving a speech – but actually, I really enjoyed it.
    • 5/5
      I loved the progression of this story! I knew nothing about it going into it. Totally fabulous.
    • 4/5
      Debut novel by author Sarah Waters is a coming of age, LGBTQ book and while not as good as her book Fingersmith probably deserves it place in 1001 books you must read before you die because of its contribution to the novel in the aspect of LGBTQ. That being said, the book, self described by author as a Lesbian romp is “too much information” for me. I don’t need or want this much sexual detail in my reading but if you like that, this book will give you a lot of detail. The story is set in the late 1800s in London and features such things as the oyster industry, theatre, socialism/early feminism.
    • 4/5
      Wow, that was not what I expected! This book had three very distinct parts. I was immediately sucked into the world of Part 1, then, well...here was my general reaction:
      Part 1: Oo, intriguing! Yes, I love this writing. Ohohohh, music halls, romance!
      Part 2: What...Nancy, what are you doing, honey? Um...okay. Wow. Well, this took an interesting turn.
      Part 3: Ah-HA! This is taking yet another turn! Where's this all going to end up?

      Where it ended up, I was pleased to find, was an ending that managed to weave the three disparate parts together. Not seamlessly, mind you, but in a satisfying way. I'm eager to read more of Sarah Waters' stuff- I've heard that this, her first novel, isn't her strongest work, but the writing and the believable Victorian setting had me hooked.
    • 3/5
      I really enjoyed Waters' The Paying Guests, which had mystery and suspense wrapped up in the romance. This novel does not, it's a romance. A historical romance, so there are some great scenes and descriptions of 1890s London, and the entire thing is very well written. But romance is one of my least favorite genres. The good writing and historical scenes got me through and gets this novel 3 stars, but that's all.
    • 4/5
      Interesting book but I really didn't like the main character. Maybe I was supposed to feel this way but she seemed selfish and weak.
    • 5/5
      A tour de force
    • 5/5
      Tipping the Velvet presents the life and times of Nancy Astly, an oyster girl, who falls in love with male impersonator Kitty Butler. After forming a friendship with Kitty, she follows her into the theaters of London, where she works as a dresser (helping Kitty with costumes) before becoming a performer herself. This beautifully told story is a sensual exploration of love and the ability of gender roles. Waters is a master of historical fiction and I loved this almost as much as I loved Fingersmith.
    • 5/5
      Nan is one of my favorite literary characters. Sarah Waters' plot twists are fantastic. You just know something is coming, but its not what you think it will be. The BBC mini-series is very good as well.
    • 4/5
      I experienced the curious situation where I didn't care for many of the characters (until closer to the end), but I wanted to find out what happened to Nancy, so I stuck with it. It was a little clunky at times, but I chalk that up to being Waters' first book. The atmosphere was lush enough that I'm interested in seeing how she developed her style in subsequent novels.
    • 3/5
      I haven't watched the series or read other similar books as a historical - Victorian London - or gendered. Nancy, the main protagonist is annoyingly selfish, Kitty was not fully developed as a character and the writing is self-indulgent in parts. But it's lively, layered and written in such an absorbing way I couldn't put it down.
    • 4/5
      In Victorian England, Nancy Astley loved going to the music hall in nearby Canterbury. When a male impersonator called Kitty Butler starts performing there and completely entrances Nancy. Soon Nancy goes backstage to meet Kitty, it seems the attraction is mutual, especially when Kitty asks Nancy to come to London with her to be her dresser. It takes awhile to blossom, but the romance between the two is sweet, until, of course, it isn’t. Nancy finds herself on her own in London and makes some questionable decisions for the sake of survival (and fun) until she finally ends up on the doorstep of an austere socialist. While I’m sure the history is fudged a bit for the sake of plot, it’s still fun to see all the different aspects of lesbian culture that Nancy encounters throughout the book, from the music halls to the upper classes to the working classes. Sometimes I rooted for Nancy, other times I wanted to shake her and ask why she was being such an idiot, which makes for a compelling character. All the characters came vividly to life in this book and I found myself wanting to know more about each of them. I listened to the audio book, narrated by Juanita McMahon, who does an excellent job giving voice to the wide variety of characters in this book. If you’re looking for a queer historical romance novel, Tipping the Velvet is a great place to start.
    • 4/5
      The likeable first-person narrator in Sarah Waters's debut novel is Nan Astley, whom we first meet as a rather shy, eighteen-year-old "oyster girl" in Whitstable. She becomes infatuated with Kitty Butler, a visiting male impersonator at the local theatre. An unlikely friendship develops and Nan and Kitty are soon on their way to London together. The novel charts Nan's coming of age (and "coming out") in the lesbian communities of late 19th century London.I started this book after having read all Waters's other novels except "The Paying Guests" (which I read concurrently - watch this space for my review...) In the light of Waters's later works, I don't consider "Tipping the Velvet" as one of her very best books. As a picaresque novel, it lacks the tight plotting of Fingersmith. Nor does it have the ambitious narrative structure of The Night Watch or the tantalising ambiguities of The Little Stranger. That said, it is easy to understand why critics were so enthusiastic about this novel when it was first published. Here was a new, exciting author with a surprising eye for detail and a talent for sumptuous descriptions of a bygone age. Here was an author who confidently evoked the Victorian era without resorting to rosy nostalgia or gaslight clichés. Here was an author who was evidently well-versed in the 19th century literary canon but equally knowledgeable about the naughtier writers of the period (Waters had researched 19th century pornography as part of her doctoral studies and the title is a term taken from Victorian sexual slang). Indeed, "Tipping the Velvet" sometimes feels like the book that Dickens or Collins might have written but would have never dared publish. A rollicking debut, then, and a good place to start exploring Waters' world. In my view however, her later books are better, albeit less transgressive.
    • 5/5
      This was a re-read... it was the first Waters novel I'd read, and I read it because I saw (and loved) the film. But elements of the film and the book were getting a bit confused in my head, plus I'd run out of books by Waters to read, so I thought I'd read this one again.
      It's really an excellent book - it's both a convincing and touching narrative of a young woman's path to maturity and a true understanding of love, and an exciting tour through 19th-century London's demimonde. Erotic without being gratuitous, it's got scenes and characters that will stick with you for years.
    • 4/5
      A thoroughly enjoyable story, unencumbered by plot and with some great sex senes.
    • 4/5
      The first book of Sarah Waters that I have read and I'm not disappointed. Narrated by Nancy/Nan King/ Nance depends on who's referring to her. A oyster girl from Whitstable with an ordinary life until she goes to see a show and sees Kitty Butler, who she feels instant attraction to. She continues to go to the show daily to catch a glimpse of Kitty and eventually they meet and form a friendship and subsequently an intimate relationship when Nan moves to London with her. Being based in 1890's being a lesbian isn't really acceptable and they have to keep their relationship under wraps.Eventually, Kitty breaks Nan's heart and her journey really begins. She suffers heartbreak, and loss and has to get by by any means possible at times. I could really sympathize with the way Nan was feeling and how she came to the decisions that she did.I found this book hard to put down, unpredictable at times, sad at times, and also some happy moments. I was quite surprised at the end when the description of tipping the velvet was given. I read the book completely oblivious to the meaning!Read this book, it doesn't disappoint and its unlike any book I have really read.
    • 5/5
      This is the first Sarah Waters book I've read, despite having bought all her books. The research is great and the characters are vivid and lively. Wonderful novel, especially considering that it is her first book. What a fun, lesbian romp set in Victorian London. Love it!
    • 4/5
      I have had this book on my shelf to read for sometime. This ended up being a very well done historical fiction book about a young woman who ends up performing as a masher on stage and throughout that process realizes that she is gay. This is definitely an adult read.Nancy is absolutely infatuated with the masher (cross-dressing music hall singer) Kitty Butler when she sees Kitty onstage. Nancy ends up becoming Kitty’s dresser and as events progress Nancy eventually takes the stage name Nan King and joins Kitty on the stage. When Kitty begins to shy at her own lesbianism and decides to get married to their male manager, Nan’s heart is broken. Nan leaves the stage and instead walks the streets as a butch roue (a pretty boy prostitute of sorts). While on the streets Nan finds friends and love in unexpected places.This was a very entertaining, interesting, and engaging read. Nancy has such a straight-forward reaction to finding out that she loves other women; she just accepts that that is how she is and can’t understand other people's reaction to her sexual orientation. Really Nan’s attitude through the whole book is very interesting; she’s so composed and matter of fact over everything. Despite all she does and all she sees, there are only a couple of times where she feels betrayed and loses her composure.I also really enjoyed looking into this time in history and getting to see it from a different point of view. GLBT folks have been treated such a wide variety of ways by society throughout the ages and it was interesting to get a historical look into that subculture.The book is a fun read and very engaging; it’s a long book but I breezed right throughout. I would recommend for adults and older because there is a lot of sex in this book. I mean a lot a lot of sex and most of it is atypical. None of the sex is really gratuitous and I did like that a broad range of lesbian sex is portrayed; by that I mean we see Nan having tender loving sex and we also see her turning tricks for cash.Overall an excellent historical fiction novel about one young woman’s journey through a stage career, discovering her own sexuality, and surviving. I would recommend to those who are interested in reading a historical fiction that explores both theater and GLBT subculture of the late 1800’s.
    • 4/5
      If I could give this 3.5 stars I would.

      It is a near perfectly written novel. It has the correct plot devices, structure and the writing uses perfect English with perfect construction; it varies sentence length and type and mixes description, dialogue and action.

      It is emotionally flat. It fails to engage the reader.

      I could never find myself into the story, living it with the characters. I always remained conscious of the fact that I was reading a story. When a character, mostly the main character, had an experience, I knew it was a character in a novel, an invention of the author, and not someone I could care about. It's like seeing a play or going to the cinema and never being able to suspend your disbelief sufficiently to emotionally engage with the story. Even the descriptions of sex, which should be the easiest scenes to interest a reader, remained distant and cold.

      Another problem is character shift. It's a saw that character shift is the hallmark of bad melodrama. It indicates that an author has either been given the chore to write a script to a predetermined plot (often the case in soap operas) or has voluntarily chosen to do this. It appears that rather than allow the characters to develop, there was a knowing choice ahead of time as to what the plot would be and that the main character would be forced into that plot even if that meant having her do things that were "out of character." Good writers start with plots but change them if they discover the character just wouldn't go where the writer wishes they would.

      The author uses traumatic/dramatic events to justify the sudden changes in character but, while you might get away with this for one change in a novel, one huge transformation, it doesn't work when uses multiple times. Even once, it's better for the trauma to be a trigger to development than to have it suddenly alter a person overnight, so to speak.

      So, a perfectly written, plotted and structured novel that remains distant and aloof. It has some interest in its period descriptions and may be important for other social and political reasons but is disappointing because the author is highly skilled an educated and should have turned out a better piece.

      Immediately after this, I read E. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News, a book that violates all the rules. Her sentences and punctuation would enrage an English teacher, the structure is all wrong and so many other things are wrong that it's hard to catalogue them but Proulx's novel works; it engages the reader and makes you care about the characters and the story. By every common metric, Sarah Water's novel is better but it falls flat. It appears Proulx benefitted from her lack of literary education (not that she had none but not an excess).
    • 5/5
      This is a wonderful book. Part history, part romance, and all triumph. A beautifully told story of love, loss, and rebirth. Definitely making its way to my "favorites" list. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Besides being decent historical fiction, Tipping The Velvet is pretty decent erotic writing. Set in the late 19th century UK, our heroine Nan, leaves her loving family in a seaside town for greater love and adventure in the big city. Nan goes through three phases: Normal, Weird, and Settled, which are like Dickens stage sets that describe particular social classes and subcultures. Tipping The Velvet is the most overtly erotic of a trilogy (Affinity & Fingersmith) which have little in common except the historical period, and heroines who discover the joys of womanly companionship.

      In each of the three books, Waters does a fantastic job of scene setting, and subculture description: Affinity is memorable not only for the the Millbank women's prison, but also for the spiritualist subculture, not to mention excellent evil characters, and good/evil reversals of fortune. Fingersmith has yet another flavor - a Dickensian tale that Charles never imagined, and certainly could not put to paper and publish even if he had. To me, Sarah Waters is filling in blanks - lesbian lacunas -- that Dickens skipped in his tales of orphans, thieves, and skanky characters from the 1800's.

    • 4/5
      I give this 4 1/2 stars and wouldv'e given it 5 if it werent for the 3rd part of the book.
      Otherwise, I felt that this 'coming of age' in london as a woman who likes women and dresses like a man pretending not to be a "tom" but being a "tom"....
      I can identify with young Nancy, she goes to a stage show and sees a woman dressed as a man singing and she becomes enamered.. I felt the same way watching Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer blondes (although Marilyn didn't dress like a man) She is lucky enough to get invited back stage and meet the lady she idolizes on stage and somehow ends up being her private maid. Nancy leaves her crowded home where she shares a bed with her sister, to traveling around sharing a bed with her idol. Not to go into specifics, but the 3 major women who play romantic parts in Nancy's late teens to late 20's are definitely different.
      But which one should she pick to be with?
      I found Part 3 long.... I didn't find Flo engaging at all. The more she revealed about herself, the more I disliked her and I dont think she really loved Nancy. But she was the safest choice in the end I guess as the crazy rich woman only wanted to own her and Kitty only wanted to hide her and Flo wanted her to like Her causes and support HER. Poor Gal.
      I did enjoy the book, but it could have been made shorter in some parts.
    • 5/5
      Tipping the Velvet was my first step into the worlds of LGBT and Sarah Water's literature, and it certainly will not be my last. Through the pages of this novel there is the painting of spectacular scenes, marvellous (though not always admirable) characters and a journey with Nan King, a girl turn (wo)man who at times deserves a good shake but always manages to find herself in captivating situations. This is certainly the best novel I have read in a long time, perking my interest from page one with Sarah's wonderful prose. My only complaint is that at times it was predictable, but even so it's daring characters and mesmerizing world far overshadowed such a flaw. That being said, many of these characters are not always lovable - so if you're looking for a fluffy do-gooder book, you may want to look elsewhere. Though without a doubt it is a treasure in my minds eye and I would certainly recommend it to most who haven't yet tried it.
    • 4/5
      I wish there were more books like this story out there. Stories about groups of people in past time periods that have previously not been written about are very interesting. We seem to have an uncountable number of books about rich debutantes and heiresses during the Victorian era but not many about working class oyster girls, performers and lesbians. And I am on the record saying I want more books about oyster girls, performers and lesbians -- of any era.

      Tipping the Velvet can be generically described as a coming of age and self discovery book. It promises a happily ever after -- one perhaps not imagined but which is rewarding. Sarah Waters has a way with words. Her descriptions of sight and smell create atmosphere and absolutely textually enhance the story. The main character -- "Nan" - is one that I slowly began to root for and like but not a character I necessarily started off caring for. What struck me is how different the world I live in today is from even just the recent past. I cannot imagine having to abandon my family (perhaps) and be completely circumspect about my partner all because my partner was the same gender as myself. And of course I can't imagine that because I have never truly had to do that. Sarah Waters brings such sacrifices and unknown privilege to her readers but she does so in the guise of a beautiful and rewarding story. And yes, there are explicit scenes in this novel.

      An interesting aspect of the story is that to be free of the female gender role is to dress as a man and go out in public as a man. Women of this era lived highly restrictive lives and had very restrictive opportunities, but dressing as a man provided a freedom not only from male attention but from the restrictions imposed on females during this era. Being a woman as such a role was a defined during this era was by default limiting. Ms. Waters, plays with this concept. I have read one other book by Waters -- Affinity -- in both novels she effectively equate a woman's prescribed role and a woman's limitations in a society with a society's judgment of distaste for same-sex relationships.

      What really surprised me, is the acceptance by several characters of the same sex relationships. I have no framework from which to criticize their acceptance and I hope their was acceptance but I guess I am doubtful if such acceptance is historically accurate.

      But if you don't want to go heavy and think about societal analysis, you don't have to. Tipping the Velvet is beautifully written, interesting and yeah there is sex.
    • 4/5
      Fun, light Victorian novel about Nancy Astley, a blue collar oyster shucker who leaves her small town to act on stage in London. The book portrays an interesting picture of Victorian England, just at the beginning of social reform for the working class. Nancy starts her stage career as a 'masher' - a woman who dresses in men's clothing, which was scandalous for the times. Nancy falls in love with her costar, another 'masher' named Kitty, and Nancy soon realizes that she is a lesbian. What I found interesting was that although some people disapproved of her relationships, she was accepted in many circles. Here we are now in 2009 - women can wear pants, women can vote, we have labor laws and yet we still have not advanced as far as accepting sexual differences. Overall a good light romance with a bit of social commentary.
    • 4/5
      Sarah Waters' "Tipping the Velvet" is a really great novel following a young oystergirl named Nancy Astley who falls in love with a male impersonator and follows her to London. The book is very sexually explicit so if you find lesbian love scenes bothersome, you'll want to avoid reading this one.The characters are really well drawn and realistic. I found the book really compelling and hard to put down. My only complaint was that it fizzled a little by the end, as Nancy's transformation into a political activist seemed a bit forced. A minor quibble, really. Overall, though, this was just a really interesting read.
    • 5/5
      Bought this on Ebay.
      It is more of a Literature Historical Fiction book,but decided to add it in the history genre.


      Finished reading just now (April 14 2006) and the word that come to mind is,wow! What a great read. I have read so many books but this is one I won't forget. I highly recommend this book.
    • 3/5
      I don't really know how to start reviewing this book! I definitely enjoyed it. It's a little dense, sometimes, but it's not really all that slow-moving -- I suppose some stories might get the first one hundred and fifty pages out in a chapter, but Tipping the Velvet isn't boring about it. I did get a little stuck reading it, at one point, but that was mostly because I guessed something bad was about to happen, and I didn't really want it to happen.

      So, you might guess that I grew to care about the characters. I definitely did, although they're not the kind of characters that stick in your mind forever and ever -- I thought the same thing when I read Fingersmith, which is also by Sarah Waters. I think it was a bit better in Tipping the Velvet.

      It's still hard to see it as purely historical fiction -- impossible, even, given the number of sex scenes that, if not exactly pornographic, aren't skimpy with details either. I can see why people think of Sarah Waters as a lesbian writer. I found it a little difficult to believe that there were so many lesbians in Victorian times. But then it was pointed out in a lecture when I studied Dracula that we tend to think of the Victorians as much more prim and proper than they actually were, so I don't know... I found some of it over the top, anyway -- not so much Florence and the other 'toms' nearer the end of the book, but definitely the Sapphist society that make such a pet out of Nancy.

      Some of the descriptions are very good, particularly some of the early ones where Nancy is beginning to fall in love with Kitty. Most of the characters are reasonably realistic -- I find Kitty's intentions of hiding her relationship with Nancy very convincing, for example. Sometimes I wish someone would introduce her to subtlety -- some of the foreshadowing didn't so much hint as what was going to happen as take a big stick and hit one round the head with it.

      Of the two books I've read by Sarah Waters, Tipping the Velvet is the more fun. It's a little over the top, maybe, but quite bright and colourful and vivid, even at Nancy's darker moments. The plot is less tightly wound -- in Fingersmith, everything has to happen just so, so that the scheme falls into place, while Tipping the Velvet is appropriately a little more rambling, more like real life.
    • 2/5
      After loving Fingersmith, I was all ready for another Sarah Waters outside-of-the-box story. But it wasn't to be; for me, Nan was so self-centered she became increasingly unlikeable. I am all for self-discovery but Nan becomes so wrapped up in herself that she is incredibly one-dimensional and I cared less and less about what happened to her/the relationships/if she found happiness. Wasn't crazy about her stint as a feMALE renter either- it seemed like a leap. I did appreciate the depictions of London and the time - Waters gets those spot on. But hey, I will most likely watch the film when it is released.