Victorian Era History

Mr Horniman's Walrus tells the story of the rise and fall of three generations of a remarkable and dysfunctional Victorian family—the Hornimans—exploring the lives and loves behind their extraordinary and varied legacies. Drawing on her years of research and unfettered access to the family archive, Clare Paterson has written a riveting tale of trade, collecting, the stage, sex and politics in Victorian Britain.

In the last 50 years, folklorists have amassed an extraordinary corpus of contemporary legends including "the Choking Doberman," "the Eaten Ticket," and "the Vanishing Hitchhiker." But what about the urban legends of the past? These legends and tales have rarely been collected, and when they occasionally appear, they do so as ancestors or precursors of the urban legends of today, rather than as stories in their own right. In The Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends, Simon Young fills this gap for British folklore (and for the wider English-speaking world) of the 1800s.

Tourists have sought out the landmarks, streets, and alleys of Charles Dickens's London ever since the death of the world-renowned author. Late Victorians and Edwardians were obsessed with tracking down the locations—dubbed "Dickensland"—that famously featured in his novels. But his fans were faced with a city that was undergoing rapid redevelopment, where literary shrines were far from sacred. Over the following century, sites connected with Dickens were demolished, relocated, and reimagined.

Em Medicina dos horrores, a historiadora Lindsey Fitzharris narra como era o chocante mundo da cirurgia do século XIX, que estava às vésperas de uma profunda transformação. A autora evoca os primeiros anfiteatros de operações—lugares abafados onde os procedimentos eram feitos diante de plateias lotadas—e cirurgiões pioneiros, cujo ofício era saudado não pela precisão, mas pela velocidade e pela força bruta, uma vez que não havia anestesia. Não à toa, os mais célebres cirurgiões da época eram capazes de amputar uma perna em menos de trinta segundos.

Her reign of 63 years and seven months is known as the Victorian Era, a period of industrial, cultural, scientific, and political change that was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. But Victoria was raised under close supervision and near isolation until she became Queen of the United Kingdom at the young age of 18. She married her first cousin, Albert, and had nine children who married into families across Europe.

July 1839, without the permission of the English Government, the New Zealand Company ship, Tory, quietly departed England, anxious to reach New Zealand with the utmost speed. Expedition leader, Colonel William Wakefield's objective is clear - acquire millions of acres of valuable land from the natives at the lowest possible price. On board the Tory, Andrew and Eleanor Stewart, young Scottish emigrants indentured to the New Zealand Company, are excited at the prospect of beginning a new life in a perfect town called Britannia. It's the Utopia the company promised.

A smart, provocative account of the erotic current running just beneath the surface of a stuffy and stifling Victorian London.

In 1860s London, two loosely overlapping groups of bohemians - the Cannibal Club and the Aesthetes - challenged the buttoned-up Victorian propriety to promote erotic freedom and expression. Sensually attuned and politically radical, they were among the most influential thinkers and artists of the day, from Richard Burton to Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris.

When the British voted to leave the European Union in 2016, the country's future was thrown into doubt. So, too, was its past. The story of British history is no longer a triumphalist narrative of expanding global empire, nor one of ever-closer integration with Europe. What is it now? In Island Stories, historian David Reynolds offers a multi-faceted new account of the last millennium to make sense of Britain's turbulent present.

A unique and fascinating look at Victorian society through the remarkable lives of an enlightened and philanthropic aristocratic couple, the marquess and marchioness of Aberdeen, who tried to change the world for the better but paid a heavy price. This is a true tale of love and loss, fortune and misfortune.

When one hears the term “Victorian”, many images come to mind. For some, the term conjures up visions of lace and gloves and delicate fans. Others think of tight corsets and even tighter morals. Others, swayed perhaps by one too many British costume dramas, envision gentle elegance and long-lost beauty. Naturally, few people think of multiple dead bodies cast about in the streets or dark bedrooms, most mutilated to a shocking degree, and yet, those tragic images played a significant role not only in late Victorian London, but ever since.

Modern society tends to portray men of history to be great saints or great sinners. In fact, biographers are often inclined, depending on their personal predilections, to portray their subjects as one of these two extremes, especially when someone is seen by a certain group as an example of religious ideals or values. Writers are often afraid that if any of the person's mistakes come to light, it will somehow disqualify them from being admired.

Oscar Wilde visited America in the year 1882. Interest in the Aesthetic School, of which Wilde was the most prominent representative, had spread to the United States, and Wilde decided to undertake an American lecture tour to explain the Aesthetic movement. Towards the end of September 1883 Wilde returned to England and immediately commenced a lecturing tour. His first visit was to Wandsworth Town Hall where he presented his "Impressions of America", the text of which was published in 1906.