Victorian Era History

Arthur Conan Doyle was a GP before he became a writer. He uses his medical knowledge widely in the Sherlock Holmes stories. He bases the deductive skills of his hero detective on the diagnostic techniques a GP uses with a patient. He even gives Sherlock a GP sidekick. This all contributes to the enduring popularity of the Sherlock Holmes stories, over 130 years after the first story was published.

In 1916, the Cambridge historian, F.J. Foakes-Jackson braved the wartime Atlantic to deliver the Lowell Lectures in Boston. In these wide-ranging and engaging talks, the author describes British life between 1750-1850. There are John Wesley's horseback peregrinations over thousands of miles of English countryside. Next, Foakes-Jackson introduces the mordant rural poet, George Crabbe, who began life as a surgeon apothecary and ended up as a parish rector who made house calls.

From a hunchbacked dwarf to a paranoid poet-assassin, a history of Victorian England as seen through the numerous assassination attempts on Queen Victoria while she ruled the British empire. During Queen Victoria’s 64 years on the British throne, no fewer than eight attempts were made on her life. Murphy follows each would-be assassin and the repercussions of their actions, illuminating daily life in Victorian England, the development of the monarchy under Queen Victoria, and the evolution of the attacks in light of changing social issues and technology.

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.

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.

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.

Edward, Prince of Wales, better known as "Bertie", was the eldest son of Queen Victoria. Charming and dissolute, he was a larger-than-life personality with king-size appetites. A lifelong womanizer, Bertie conducted his countless liaisons against the glittering backdrop of London society, Europe, and the stately homes of England in the second half of the 19th century. Bertie's lovers were beautiful, spirited society women who embraced a wide field of occupations.

Through the enduring eye of Sherlock Holmes, noted historian Jeremy Black traces how Holmes and his milieu evolved in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's books and how Holmes continues to resonate today. Black explores the context of Doyle's ideas and stories and why they struck such a chord with readers in London, and ultimately the world. Drawing on a masterful knowledge both of Doyle's era and his writings, this entertaining and wide-ranging book uses the Holmes stories to bring Victorian England to vibrant life, a world where crimes large and small abound.

The Cancer Problem offers the first medical, cultural, and social history of cancer in 19th-century Britain. It argues that it was in the 19th century that cancer acquired the unique emotional, symbolic, and politicized status it maintains today. Through an interrogation of the construction, deployment, and emotional consequences of the disease's incurability, this book reframes our conceptualization of the relationship between medicine and modern life and reshapes our understanding of chronic and incurable maladies, both past and present.

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.