Originally posted on Brain Pickings
History has treated no name so shabbily as it has the name Godiva.
Today Lady Godiva brings to mind a shameful picture – a big blond nude trotting around the town on a horse. In the background of this picture there is always a peeping Tom, an illicit snooper with questionable intentions.
There was not one, there were 7 Lady Godivas and their nakedness was not actually a thing of shame. So far as Peeping Tom is concerned, he never actually peeped. “Peeping” was actually the old family name and Tom and his six brothers wore it with pride
Theodor Seuss Geisel, better-known as Dr. Seuss, was a legendary children’s book author, radical ideologist, and a lover of reading.
The Seven Lady Godivas: The True Facts Concerning History’s Barest Family, tells the story of nudist sisters who, after their father’s death, pledge not to wed until each of them has “brought to the light of the world some new and worthy Horse Truth, of benefit to man.”
The humorous story is based on the Lady Godiva legend, according to which in 1037 the Earl of Coventry’s wife rode naked on horseback through the streets of Coventry, protesting against her husband’s unfair taxes. The citizens of Coventry were ordered to remain indoors, shuttered, as she rode. But one man, Peeping Tom, peered out and was then struck blind.
The book, however, was a complete flop. Ten thousand copies were printed on the first run, and only about 2,500 were sold. The Seven Lady Godivas eventually went out of print, causing Geisel to later say:
I attempted to draw the sexiest babes I could, but they came out looking absurd.
Absurd as they might be, and oddly unerotic despite the nudity, the illustrations are a treat, perhaps in that so-bad-it’s-good kind of way, or perhaps because they offer endearing reassurance that even genius can falter.
Wondering when are we going to see a Sita, here in India parading the streets naked because her husband Ram killed an innocent child on the street on the pretext of religious justice (author’s highlight)
