MY SECRET LIFE
An audiofilm of the infamous 19th Century erotic masterpiece
Walter
In 1847 'Walter' began keeping a dairy of his erotic experiences, which when printed in 1888, would become My Secret Life.
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Dominic Crawford Collins
In 2013 Dominic Crawford Collins vowed to narrate and score the entire unabridged text creating My Secret Life: The Audiofilm.
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My Secret Life: Image courtesy of Christie's Fine Arts
"Has anybody but myself faithfully made such a record?.....it would be a sin to burn all this, whatever society may say it is but a narrative of human life, perhaps the everyday life of thousands.....if the confession could be had" ........Walter
My Secret Life, the anonymously written erotic memoirs of a Victorian English gentleman who refers to himself simply as 'Walter' is one of the most idiosyncratic books ever written. In this vast confessional, the author chronicles his sexual exploits, throughout the course of a life devoted to the pursuit of carnal experience. As the author's sexual and moral behaviour is revealed we are left with a uniquely entertaining insight into life behind the closed doors of Victorian society. My Secret Life is evocative, provocative, funny, sorrowful, suspenseful, obscene, exciting, bizarre and highly erotic...in it we are privy to the thoughts, emotions and memories of one of the most unusual, unsung and colourful characters of the Victorian era.
Although continuously motivated by the desire to have sex, Walter was equally interested in the lives and circumstances of all the women he encountered. His exploration of their hearts and minds, as well as their bodies, is what makes My Secret Life so uniquely interesting a piece of literature.
My Secret Life was revolutionary...startlingly contemporary in its literary style, it still retains the power to shock to this day. No writer has succeeded in presenting the clandestine lives of prostitutes and servants through their own stories and in their own words to the extent that Walter has. Open the pages of this extraordinary work and the hidden and forbidden voices of Victorian London spring into life. Walter's ear catches their timbre, his eye their physical form with the appreciation of an artist. In his communication of both he has engendered his subjects, who would otherwise have disappeared without trace into the ether of time, with immortality.
My own music draws its inspiration from a desire to capture the spirit of the man and the era in which he lived. To communicate the emotional depth of Walter's encounters, and to give voice to those long dead colourful characters he met along the way through the magical marriage of storytelling and music.
My Secret Life was revolutionary...startlingly contemporary in its literary style, it still retains the power to shock to this day. No writer has succeeded in presenting the clandestine lives of prostitutes and servants through their own stories and in their own words to the extent that Walter has. Open the pages of this extraordinary work and the hidden and forbidden voices of Victorian London spring into life. Walter's ear catches their timbre, his eye their physical form with the appreciation of an artist. In his communication of both he has engendered his subjects, who would otherwise have disappeared without trace into the ether of time, with immortality.
My own music draws its inspiration from a desire to capture the spirit of the man and the era in which he lived. To communicate the emotional depth of Walter's encounters, and to give voice to those long dead colourful characters he met along the way through the magical marriage of storytelling and music.
THE NURSEMAID
'She was I suppose my nursemaid. I recollect that she sometimes held my little prick when I piddled, was it needful to do so? I don't know.'
Walter's Aunt:Fred's Mother
"The cunt which seemed to have affected my imagination was that of my aunt, which appeared more like a great parting, or division of her body, than a cunt as I then understood it"
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TWO FEMALE COUSINS
'I saw some black at the bottom of her belly, a fear came over me, that I was doing wrong and should be punished if found looking'
Lucy & Mary-Ann
"Oh! come Watt, come softly, Lucy and Mary are quite naked, you can see their cunts, Lucy has some black hair on hers.......she was a lovely girl and had long chestnut hair."
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THE GOVERNESS
'I pushed my hands up the petticoats of the governess, felt the hair of her cunt, and that there was something warm, and moist, between her thighs'
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