ABSTRACT
The boys’ stories might be full of “unblushing medical details” but can we expect the same from the stories written for girls? If adolescence for Victorian boys was not so much a time of innocence, but rather a time in which their acknowledged sexuality was not yet directed towards a sexual relationship, innocence has a rather more important role to play in defi ning the adolescence of Victorian girls. There is as much anxiety expressed over girls’ knowledge as there is over boys’ behaviour.
