Becoming : Duke University Press : 9780822323891 : 0822323893 : 25 Aug 1999 : Clementina, Viscountess Hawarden (1822?1865) produced over eight hundred photographs during her all-too-brief life. Most of these were portraits of her adolescent daughters. By whisking away the furniture and bric-a-brac common in scenes of upper-class homes of the Victorian period, Lady Hawarden transformed the sitting room of her London residence into a photographic studio?a private space for taking surprising photos of her daughters in fancy dress. In Carol Mavor's hands, these pictures become windows into Victorian culture, eroticism, mother-daughter relationships, and intimacy. With drama, wit, and verve, Lady Hawarden's girls, becoming women, entwine each other, their mirrored reflections and select feminine objects (an Indian traveling cabinet, a Gothic-style desk, a shell-covered box) as homoerotic partners. The resulting mise-en-scène is secretive, private, delicious, and arguably queer?a girltopia r