Lingerie in Literature
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- Anna Pollitt
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Underwear is a visually powerful tool, but how does it fare in the written word?
Ian McEwan favours relentlessly detailed descriptions - right down to the tiny daisy embroidered on Cecilia's bra in Atonement. Jane Austen, on the other hand, moans in letters to her sister about the "unnatural" fashion for pushed-up bosoms and we've all become familiar with EL James' most over-used undergarment in the Fifty Shades trilogy. Yes we're looking at you, "panties".
Here we bring you 20 of our favourite instances of lingerie in literature (and click your way over here if you fancy the fully-clothed version).
Tell us know your best undies in books on Twitter, or in the comments, below.
Images: Rex Features
Clarissa by Samuel Richardson
The Collected Dorothy Parker
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Rejection by Franz Kafka
Nana by Emile Zola
The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Mr. Mulliner Speaking by P.G. Wodehouse
Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable: A Trilogy by Samuel Beckett
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
SantaLand Diaries by David Sedaris
Gentleman Alone by Pablo Neruda
Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Jane Austen's Letters