My Secret Life: perhaps the most infamous of all underground Victorian erotica. From his sexually precocious childhood to the close of his “amatory career,” an adventurous Victorian referred to only as “Walter” tells the epic story of a carnal journey through hundreds of sexual encounters with a myriad of partners: nursemaids, prostitutes, cousins, actresses, workingmen, and other men’s wives. Unabashed and unafraid to explore the reaches of erotic pleasure, Walter throws himself into “varied delights…whims and fancies normal and abnormal,” sexual violence, fetishes—and sometimes, glimpsed amongst the debauchery, love. Originating from an era notorious for its repression, in which propriety and appearances were key, My Secret Life offers a rare look at the underside side of Victorian life: a world of impropriety, and the exploration of the forbidden.