This book presents an original and engaging study of the cultural history and literary significance of hairwork - the crafting of decorative objects, such as jewellery, from human hair - in Victorian Britain. This book reconstructs and interprets the role of hairwork in revealing and negotiating desires and anxieties by studying its historical trajectory, surviving artefacts and practices alongside its literary representations in works by Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Wilkie Collins and Margaret Oliphant.