ABSTRACT
The media’s fascination for the figure of the sex worker has been well documented, and interest in her shows no signs of abating (McCracken, 2013; Li, 2009); in fact, numerous scholars have noted a recent increase in that fascination (Negra, 2008; Boyle, 2008; Arthurs, 2004; Gunter, 2002). Of course, sex work has been written about and debated in print for as long as there have been sex workers and the means to write. Using an analysis of the British Newspaper Archive and the 1,375,810 newspapers published from 1800 to 1900 held in the archive, this chapter explores how British Victorian journalistic narratives established the discourse of the sex worker as a social victim in need of rescue by her moral superiors which continues to frame modern journalistic debate concerning sex work to this day.
