Victorian History

During the upheavals of 2007-9, the chairman of the Federal Reserve had the name of a Victorian icon on the tip of his tongue: Walter Bagehot. Banker, man of letters, inventor of the Treasury bill, and author of Lombard Street, the still-canonical guide to stopping a run on the banks, Bagehot prescribed the doctrines that - decades later - inspired the radical responses to the world's worst financial crises.

The Victorian period may have come to an end over 120 years ago, but the Victorians continue to be a vital presence in the modern world. Contemporary Britain is still in large part Victorian in its transport networks, sewage systems, streets, and houses. Victorian cultural legacies, especially in art, science, and literature, are still celebrated. Much mythologized, inexhaustibly controversial, the Victorians are an inescapable reference point for understanding the modern histories not just of Britain and its empire, but of the world.

Two more great reads to enjoy, love and go where you have never been before in a world where magic and science both exist. A TALE LESS TOLD This Christmas at Baker Street is never going to be the same. Magic and fun unlike any before as a Christmas Party goes awry in 221B bring to bear Holmes and all his friends to solve a mystery that could be something horrible for all of them. TOUCH OF MAGIC Harry is many things, but curious and excited he always is. And as he grows as a magician he is going to experience the world as none other and a touch of magic is going to transform his life and ...

Perhaps one of the best known of the English monarchs, Queen Victoria forever shaped a chapter of English history, bequeathing her name to the Victorian age. In Queen Victoria, Lucy Worsley introduces this iconic woman in a new light. Going beyond an exploration of the queen merely as a monarch, Worsley considers Victoria as a woman leading a truly extraordinary life in a unique time period.

Celebrated storyteller and historian Edward Dolnick leads us through a compelling true adventure as the paleontologists of the first half of the 19th century puzzled their way through the fossil record to create the story of dinosaurs we know today. The tale begins with Mary Anning, a poor, uneducated woman who had a sixth sense for finding fossils buried deep inside cliffs; and moves to a brilliant, eccentric geologist named William Buckland.

An Amazon Best Seller in Biographical Fiction and #1 Best Seller in Women's Action and Adventure Fiction "As the depth of truth of one's life can only be penned upon the pages of a diary, Jane Digby leads us through her passionate life . . . A wonderful piece of historical fiction that will delight your senses as well as your heart." - Peggy Lee Sprague, Author of The Truth Hunters series Based on a true story . . . Bright, beautiful, and bold, Jane Digby led a remarkable life. Born to privilege in 1807 at Dorset, England, she soon scandalized Europe with her reckless pursuit of freedom. ...

Eminent Victorians, Lytton Strachey's wonderfully witty and Wildean quartet of biographies, stands out as one of the most radical and groundbreaking works of its genre. With relentless precision, Strachey explores the lives of four exemplars of the Victorian age: Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold and General Gordon, irreverently bringing to light the flaws, strengths, ambitions and hypocrisies of these treasured legends.

In the turbulent 1840s, Philippe Viniès held high hopes for the future of France and awaited revolution impatiently. As political chaos descends upon the nation, an elderly gentleman challenges his radical ideas, but while he struggles to defend himself, the charms of the gentler sex take him unawares. Will he see the revolution through or will the old man and the young lady alter his course.

The encyclopedia once shaped our understanding of the world. Created by thousands of scholars and the most obsessive of editors, a good set conveyed a sense of absolute wisdom on its reader. Contributions from Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Orville Wright, Alfred Hitchcock, Marie Curie and Indira Gandhi helped millions of children with their homework. Adults cleared their shelves in the belief that everything that was explainable was now effortlessly accessible in their living rooms.

The year is nineteen and five and the setting is Windsor Castle. The Queen has united all of Europe, Asia, and America under her rule. With occurrences of magic being interpreted as miracles, religious war becomes inevitable. Seen by both Catholics and Protestants as the devil incarnate, Agatha finds herself at odds with old institutions. This will be a war that will be fought, not with guns and bombs but with powerful magic. As the intensity increases, someone new comes into play. Agatha’s mother, who has not been seen or heard in fifteen hundred years, returns from virtual oblivion and ...

Empire of the Dead A Sherlock Holmes: Zombie Slayer Mystery Book Nine in the Bestselling Series New York City, 1900. The Gilded Age is cracking at the edges. Beneath the marble facades and gaslit boulevards, something unspeakable stirs. Holmes and Watson arrive in Manhattan expecting a quiet beginning to their American lecture tour. Instead, they’re swept into a chilling mystery when the daughter of a powerful railroad tycoon vanishes from her Fifth Avenue mansion—without a trace. The case deepens when a mutilated corpse is discovered in Central Park… a policeman, half-devoured, with ...

In the span of fifteen years, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream murdered as many as ten people in the United States, Britain, and Canada, a death toll with almost no precedent. Poison was his weapon of choice. Largely forgotten today, this villain was as brazen as the notorious Jack the Ripper. The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream exposes the blind trust given to medical practitioners, as well as the flawed detection methods, bungled investigations, corrupt officials, and stifling morality of Victorian society that allowed Dr. Cream to prey on vulnerable and desperate women.

In 1838, a young woman was given a diary on her wedding day. Collecting snippets of fabric from a range of garments—some her own, others donated by family and friends—she carefully annotated each one, creating a unique record of their lives. Her name was Mrs. Anne Sykes. Nearly two hundred years later, the diary fell into the hands of Kate Strasdin, a fashion historian and museum curator. Using her expertise, Strasdin spent the next six years unraveling the secrets contained within the album's pages, and the lives of the people within.

Drawn from the Royal archives, including Prince Albert’s voluminous correspondence, this brilliant and ambitious book offers fascinating never-before-known details about the man and his time. A superb match of biographer and subject, Prince Albert, at last, gives this important historical figure the reverence and recognition that is long overdue.

Hilda Beauchamp believes that God guides the life of every believer—and that it is her job to guide God. Hilda’s plans meet many complications, but at least one of her prayers gets answered when the winds of spiritual revival sweep England, stirred by the great evangelistic campaigns of D. L. Moody and Ira Sankey. Word of Hudson Taylor’s mission to China fires imaginations and missionary fervor within the Cambridge community. But Hilda and the charming Kynaston Studd—whom Hilda has slated to marry her sister—find their plans sidelined. Kynaston was the leader, the first within his...

Sherlock Holmes at his finest in... Twelve short stories that plunge... into the mind of Sherlock Holmes. Each case provokes a new emotion. Each story dives deeper into the mysterious Baker Street Universe. A realm that is parallel to ours in another universe. A world where anything is possible. A place where anything can happen. And often does! That needs a smart man, a clever detective to solve crimes… That lurk in the darker regions of a Victorian London… Where monsters and mad men dwell.

The Day the Tripods Came is a gripping collection of interconnected tales that reimagines H.G. Wells' classic The War of the Worlds through the eyes of ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances. From a London clerk fleeing the devastation to an artilleryman's underground resistance, from a curate's crisis of faith to an astronomer's wife's scientific revelations, these stories weave a tapestry of human resilience in the face of cosmic horror. As Martian tripods lay waste to Victorian England, our heroes must confront not only the alien threat but also their own humanity. This ...

For the first time, The Secret Royals uncovers the remarkable relationship between the royal family and the intelligence community, from the reign of Queen Victoria to the death of Princess Diana. In an enthralling narrative, Richard J. Aldrich and Rory Cormac show how the British secret services grew out of persistent attempts to assassinate Victoria and then operated on a private and informal basis, drawing on close personal relationships between senior spies, the aristocracy and the monarchy.

A captivating exploration of the role in which Queen Victoria exerted the most international power and influence: as a matchmaking grandmother. Queen Victoria's Matchmaking travels through the glittering, decadent palaces of Europe from London to Saint Petersburg, weaving in scandals, political machinations, and family tensions. It is at once an intimate portrait of a royal family and an examination of the conflict caused by the marriages the Queen arranged. At the heart of it all is Victoria herself: doting grandmother one moment, determined Queen Empress the next.

The legend of Maggie's Bridge is well known to locals. In the late 1800's a young girl, pregnant and frightened, loses her life on a lonely bridge in a terrible storm. But what is the truth behind the story? Who was Maggie Bloxom? What fates brought her to that dark place and stole her future away from her? Claire Ludlow is a local. She grew up visiting the bridge at midnight and calling for Maggie. One night when she was 16 she sees more than she thought possible. When life draws her back to her home town years later and drops her within arms reach of the bridge, can she use newly ...