Victorian English History

While "freaks" have captivated our imagination since well before the 19th century, the Victorians flocked to shows featuring dancing dwarves, bearded ladies, "missing links", and six-legged sheep. Indeed, this period has been described by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson as the epoch of "consolidation" for freakery: an era of social change, enormously popular freak shows, and taxonomic frenzy. Victorian Freaks: The Social Context of Freakery in Britain, edited by Marlene Tromp, turns to that rich nexus, examining the struggle over definitions of "freakery".

A photograph becomes a sudden portal into a Victorian summer almost two hundred years ago… Browsing in an old bookshop, Harry Inman comes across a fragile metal plate showing the image of a famous hotel in Saratoga Springs, NY, dated 1847. He knows he holds in his hand a rare daguerreotype, the earliest form of photography. The small, framed image is eroding, but not before it opens a window into the past, one that pulls Harry literally into another time and space. It is a world that appears increasingly mesmerizing and seductive to him, the Saratoga Springs of grand hotels and Victorian ...

A Room of His Own sheds light on the mysterious ways of male associational culture as it examines such topics as fraternity, sophistication, nostalgia, social capital, celebrity, gossip, and male professionalism. The story of clubland (and the literature it generated) begins with Britain's military heroes home from the Napoleonic campaign and quickly turns to Dickens's and Thackeray's acrimonious Garrick Club Affair.

Will her true love ever return? He loves her more than life itself, but he's forced to say goodbye.... Spencer Hayes has been in love with Ginny Cawley since he first laid eyes on her years ago. Now, he must leave her to make one last trip to the Caribbean before taking over his father's shipping company. However, an unexpected storm at sea leaves him not only reflecting on his time with Ginny but makes him realize he may never see her again. This novelette is inspired by Beneath the Inconstant Moon by ID Johnson and provides further insight into Spencer and Ginny's relationship.

This is the story of the author’s two paternal great-great-grandfathers, both of whom spent over forty years helping to save lives on the Isles of Scilly: Edwin Lewis Davis as the keeper of St Agnes Lighthouse and John Grenfell Moyle as the islands’ only doctor. It also follows the mariners, miners, preachers and teachers of the Moyle and Davis families as they become part of the great Cornish diaspora. We accompany them over the seven seas aboard speedy clippers, to the Antipodes during the gold rush, to the industrial north of England, to lighthouses along rugged coastlines and to the...

For over six decades, Queen Victoria ruled a great empire. Beside her for more than 20 of those years was her beloved husband and the father of their nine children, Prince Albert. A composer, engineer, soldier, politician, linguist and bibliophile, Albert was one of the architects of Victorian Britain's transformation as a centre of political, technological, scientific and intellectual advancement. Albert lived only 42 years but fathered four royal dynasties and helped pioneer the modern constitutional monarchy.

Were things really better in the good old days? Gilda O'Neill's powerful exploration of the teeming underbelly that was to be found in the fog-bound streets, rat-infested slums, common lodging houses, boozers, penny gaffs, and brothels in the heart of the greatest empire that the world has ever seen brings to life the real working-class London of Victoria's reign.

Nothing drowns out the sound of drowning.... The survivors of Titanic arrive in New York City on a rainy April morning, but being back on dry land doesn't end the terror, and for some of the passengers, the nightmares are just beginning. Having escaped her haunting past in Southampton, Meg Westmoreland knows she should be excited to start her new life in New York City as millionaire Charlie Ashton's fiancée. However, Titanic has scarred both of them, and part of her wants to escape into the night, to start her new life all over again. Meg knows she must find the strength to help Charlie ...

An unlikely trio of ghost hunters ply their trade in Victorian England. But have they met their match? London, 1871. When I applied for the position of bookkeeper with Professor Twickham and his daughter, I lied about my qualifications. In turn, they lied about the job for which I was applying. Had we not been so untruthful with each other, there might have been fewer night terrors stalking the inhabitants of the City. Fewer unexplained disappearances. Fewer deaths. Now, nobody is safe from the vengeful spirits we've unleashed. With no time to spare, we face an impossible task: we must ...

Brixton Flew works as a professor of wielder instruction at Rembrandt Academy, hoping to erase the regrets of his youth along with the resulting debt. But when he comes face to face with his biggest regret—the woman who broke his heart, Adelaide Favan—Brixton soon realizes his troubles have only begun. Unable to control her magic, Adelaide knew leaving Brixton was the only way to protect him when they were younger. Now she discovers he is the key to recovering the Dragon Eyes, a legendary treasure connected to her magic and her family's disgraced legacy.

"Kline keeps the pages turning… a lively interpretation that will win Oxfordian approval and may even convince Stratfordians to suspend disbelief and enjoy it." —Kirkus Reviews FIRST PLACE WINNER 2014 CHAUCER AWARD FOR HISTORICAL FICTION IN ELIZABETHAN/TUDOR CATEGORY Charged in 1616 by the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery to edit a folio of Shakespeare plays, writer Ben Jonson races against time to uncover the missing manuscripts by seeking out his former nemesis, the bedridden William Shaxper. But far more worrisome is that the Earl of Oxford's daughter, the Countess of Montgomery, ...

Early in the morning of 6 May 1840, on an ultra-respectable Mayfair street, a footman answered the door to a panic-stricken maid from a nearby house. Her elderly master, Lord William Russell, was lying in bed with his throat cut so deeply that the head was almost severed. The whole of London, from monarch to street urchins, was gripped by the gory details of the Russell murder, but behind it was another story, a work of fiction, and a fierce debate about censorship and morality.

Not all love stories have a happily ever after.... All Lydia de Lisle Edwards wants from her new marriage is to love and be loved by the handsome man who rescued her from the embarrassing, and potentially life shattering, ramifications of conceiving a child out of wedlock. However, as Lydia gets to know Isaac Edwards, along with the strange woman who serves as a mother-figure to her new husband, and the terrifying doctor specializing in women's health--particularly hysteria--Lydia begins to realize this marriage might just be her undoing. An exploration into the struggles of being a woman ...

What was mothering like in the past? When acclaimed historian Sarah Knott became pregnant, she asked herself this question. But accounts of motherhood are hard to find. For centuries, historians have concerned themselves with wars, politics and revolutions, not the everyday details of carrying and caring for a baby. These details matter: they shape our feelings and give structure to our hours. But they leave little historical trace. Much to do with becoming a mother, past or present, is lost or forgotten.

After joining the Order of the Crystal Daggers, led by her dauntless grandmother, Lady Penelope, Eleanora Svobodová set out to save her kingdom from oncoming devastation. And she failed. Following the attack on Prague Castle, Eleanora is determined to redeem herself. She sets out to win Karl’s trust while distancing herself from Ferdy, whose secrets and lies have done nothing to stop her from falling in love with him.

In 1910, Mary Acworth Evershed (1867-1949) sat on a hill in southern India staring at the moon as she grappled with apparent mistakes in Dante's Divine Comedy. Was Dante's astronomy unintelligible? Or was he, for a man of his time and place, as insightful as one could be about the sky? As the 20th century began, women who wished to become professional astronomers faced difficult cultural barriers, but Evershed joined the British Astronomical Association and, from an Indian observatory, became an experienced observer of sunspots, solar eclipses, and variable stars.

What happened after the Queen married her handsome prince? Did they live happily ever after, or did their marriage, like so many royal marriages past and present, fizzle into a loveless bond of duty? Victoria and Albert were the royal couple that broke the mould - it may have been an arranged match, yet their union was a passionate, tempestuous relationship between two extremely strong-willed individuals.

Evan Chauncey, the long-lost sibling of the Chauncey clan, is poised to marry and thus secure his place in the family. His plans, however, are foiled at the last minute by the unexpected arrival of houseguests. *This book was previously titled Coming Home.*

When a brutal attack leaves Agatha DeLacey blind, she and the Artful Dodger find themselves at the mercy of an experimental biomech surgery. Though the procedure restores Aggie’s sight, her new eyes come at an unnerving cost, and the changes in Dodger are even more alarming - instead of seeing Aggie as the girl he fancies, he now views her as a potential threat.

Oliver Twist attends a costume ball that ends with parliamentary candidate Trevor Newsome disappearing days before the election. Pinocchio, the Blue Fairy, and Puss in Boots occupy a Swiss castle where immortality may lie hidden. When Long John Silver arrives, Oliver has to do some fast thinking to protect more than just his own life from the pirate who says he only cares about rescuing his daughter. Marooned on Crown of Thorns Island, Oliver must defeat enemies old and new and deal with a tentacled monster and a human one. Child slaves who think they are going to school create automatons ...