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History professor Carol Dyhouse looks at the heartthrob from Byron, Mr Darcy and Christian Grey to today’s boy-bands.

Dyhouse draws upon literature, cinema and popular romance to explain how the changing position of women has shaped their dreams about men. She argues that changes in female fantasies tell as much about the history of women as they do about the male heartthrobs. And she reflects on the changing nature of escapism, fantasy and ‘fandom’.

Dyhouse is professor emeritus of history at the University of Sussex. She has written extensively about the social history of women including Glamour: Women, History, Feminism and Girl Trouble: Panic and Progress in the History of Young Women. Here she talks to Professor Helen Taylor, emeritus professor of English at the University of Exeter, an expert on American southern literature and culture who has also written widely on women’s writing.