The 18th century saw a growing fascination with beautified female corpses and, accordingly, gave birth to a number of artworks that linked death with love. Beginning with the graveyard poets, the romantic undertones soon became heavier, darker, gloomier, when the heroines of the (still young) genre of the novel started to choose death over marriage.

Gothic Maidens

Gothic novels have shaped us all, they are 18th century pop culture. Demons, persecuted maidens, sadistic villains, femmes fatales, lesbian predators, sublime landscapes, innocence and incest. Set in the exotic middle ages in the uncivilized catholic countries Italy and Spain.

Pre-raphaelite depictions of women have it all; red hair, cherry mouths, boats. There's saints and whores and they ooze passivity and weakness, and frequently find tragic death, preferably by suicide (an appropriate action for a fallen woman).

The Film Noir brings us some strong-willed ladies at last (or stubborn if you will), who will nonetheless be punished, destroyed, or, at best, fetishized. This section is once again about the femme fatale (and has a whole lot of theory ;) ).

It's a tough endeavour to find decent literature about preferences for certain body types; and I will not enter into a bio-evolutionary discussion about waist-hip ratios and fertility.
So, here are simply some literary excerpts that you may have come across before.