Description

Tipping the Velvet is a 1998 debut novel by Welsh novelist Sarah Waters. A historical novel set in England during the 1890s, it tells a coming-of-age story about a young woman named Nan who falls in love with a male impersonator, follows her to London, and finds various ways to support herself as she journeys through the city.

Nan King begins life as an oyster girl in the provincial seaside town of Whitstable and whose fortunes are forever changed when she falls in love with a cross-dressing music-hall singer named Miss Kitty Butler.

When Kitty is called up to London for an engagement on “Grease Paint Avenue”, Nan follows as her dresser and secret lover, and, soon after, dons trousers herself and joins the act. In time, Kitty breaks her heart, and Nan assumes the guise of butch roue to commence her own thrilling and varied sexual education, a sort of Moll Flanders in drag, finally finding friendship and true love in the most unexpected places.