by Catriona Mills

Victorian Barbies: Available From Harrison and Smythe, Toy Suppliers To Their Royal Majesties

Posted 27 February 2009 in by Catriona

Stepping out of the pages of the popular weekly fiction journals, Victorian Barbie lets you reenact extravagant emotional scenes from your favourite melodramas right in your own nursery—as long as Nursie isn’t watching, of course!

Choose from these options, available now:

Seduced But Penitent Barbie!

Available in kneeling position only. Buy with the Barbie’s Deathbed playset, and create your own tableaux vivant.

Sold separately:
Stern, Unforgiving Ken
Symbolic Blasted Oak

Neurasthenic Barbie!

Press a button on her back, and watch her faint away!

Sold separately:
Attentive Swain Ken
Chair
Emotionally Traumatic Letter
Restorative Glass of Wine

East-End-Theatre Ballet-Dancer Barbie!

Comes with tambourines, rosettes for her slippers, and an entirely inappropriate amount of cleavage!

Sold separately
Horrible Accident With The Unscreened Gaslights During The Christmas Pantomime
Stockinette For Ineffectual Treatment Of Third-Degree Burns
Agonising Death Some Six Weeks Later

Botanist Barbie!

Comes with attractive flower-collecting outfit and flower.

Sold separately:
Nervous Breakdown On Realising That Science Is No Fit Subject For a Lady

And don’t forget to visit Harrison and Smythe for all your Victorian Barbie playset and accessory needs.

Share your thoughts [8]

1

Tim wrote at Feb 27, 08:34 am

> Buy with the Barbie’s Deathbed playset, and create your own tableaux vivant.

Or tableaux mordant, as it were.

2

Catriona wrote at Feb 27, 08:39 am

First one, then t’other.

3

Kirsty wrote at Feb 27, 08:59 am

Hilarious, Catriona. I want one of each, with all accessories.

4

Leigh wrote at Feb 27, 10:41 pm

Thanks for the giggle :) certainly more interesting that most barbie products on the shelf, albeit a little inappropriate :)

5

Christina Archer wrote at Nov 1, 11:29 am

Isn’t there a Heroic Missionary Barbie?

6

Catriona wrote at Nov 1, 01:05 pm

There isn’t yet, Christina, but maybe in next year’s line!

7

Jess wrote at Sep 8, 12:10 pm

Can you tell me the image source for ‘neurasthenia Barbie’?

V. funny, by the way!

8

Catriona wrote at Sep 8, 09:20 pm

Hi, Jess (and welcome to the blog). All these illustrations are from the mid-Victorian penny-weekly Bow Bells or its supplementary publication Bow Bells Novelette. I didn’t make note of which volumes/serials they were from, but I’ve had a quick look through Bow Bells Novelette, and it’s not from there, so it must be Bow Bells (probably 1872, but it would take me a while to narrow it down further than that).

All these images are ones that I’ve photographed myself, from my own copies of the journal.

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