ABSTRACT
White muslin captures a plethora of social, moral, and sartorial connotations in its fine weave and transparent folds. It is fashionable, ephemeral, and timelessly elegant. This chapter explores the ethereality and ephemerality of white muslin and its symbolic use in to depictions of femininity and sexuality in Victorian popular literature, drawing connections between the characteristics of the material and its symbolic resonances. Victorian white muslin is associated with 'the popular' and ephemeral in both literary and sartorial fashions. Mrs. Henry Wood and Mary Elizabeth Braddon, in particular, are noted for the way in which they delight "in lavish minutiae of dress, furnishings, jewellery, and trinkets". The detailed scenes of novels such as The Woman in White, Lady Audley's Secret, and East Lynne were considered to be marked by an extravagance and sensuous indulgence that exceeded the level of description necessary, according to contemporary realist authors, to tell a story.
