History Literature / TheCrimsonPetalAndTheWhite

* {{Doorstopper}}: Yep.

* ADateWithRosiePalms: Henry has one and is really disgusted with himself about it.

* VictorianNovelDisease: Played with. Emmeline Fox has actual tuberculosis. Agnes Rackham, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, beautiful wife of William who is definitely not well at all, actually has a brain tumour but, as the author points out, none of the characters actually know this.

* AManIsNotAVirgin: Henry is an interesting case. He's celibate and incredibly repressed, and no references are made to him having any kind of sexual history, even when his past sins are explored. But whether he's a virgin or not [[spoiler: when he dies]] is unclear.

** Arguably played straight with lead character Sugar, who in the book is the epitome of sensual charisma despite being plain by the current standard with a terrible skin condition. In the BBC miniseries the skin condition is not as bad and Sugar is played by Romola Garai.

* AManIsNotAVirgin: Henry is an interesting case. He's celibate and incredibly repressed, and no references are made to him having any kind of sexual history, even when his past sins are explored. But whether he's a virgin or not [[spoiler: when he dies]] is unclear.

Novel by Michel Faber, set in Victorian London and published in 2002. What Dickens would have written if Dickens was alive today, according to a review. Made into a three episode BBC drama in 2011.

Novel by Michael Faber, set in Victorian London and published in 2002. What Dickens would have written if Dickens was alive today, according to a review. Made into a three episode BBC drama in 2011.

* HairOfGold: Agnes. Lampshaded by the author when he points out this is part of what makes her the idealised High Victorian beauty.

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Averted. Henry in the novel is described as good looking and physically impressive, if a little solemn and intellectual, celibate and very religious, and in (requited) love with Mrs Fox. In the adaption, he's [[YourMilageMayVary a good deal less attractive]], and portrayed mainly as a sexually frustrated fool. Played straight with Mrs Fox, [[spoiler: whose initial looks don't change, but ends the story in a lot better shape than she does in the novel]].

* AllMenArePerverts: Henry is the closest thing we get to an aversion and he seems to see himself as a pervert.

* MarySue: In-story example. Sugar the prostitute is writing a wish-fulfilment novel about, er, a prostitute called Sugar who murders her clients in spectacularly gory fashions .

* UnproblematicProstitution: Averted. Sugar pretends to love her job because that's what the clients want, but Faber makes it clear that this was a terrible, terrible job.

* VictorianLondon: Needless to say.