This is the remarkable story of the lives of individuals afflicted with severe deformities and how seventeenth and eighteenth-century British society reacted to their extraordinary bodies.

From hog-faced women to dog-faced boys, Jan Bondeson examines historical cases of dwarfism, extreme corpulence, giantism, conjoined twins, and extreme hairiness. He considers these individuals not as 'freaks' but as human beings born with sometimes appalling congenital deformities. Heavily illustrated with woodcuts, engravings, and oil paintings, Freaks combines a scientist's scrutiny with a humanist's wonder at the endurance of the human spirit.