Victorian English History

The Victorians invented mass entertainment. As the 19th century's growing industrialized class acquired the funds and the free time to pursue leisure activities, their every whim was satisfied by entrepreneurs building new venues for popular amusement. Contrary to their reputation as dour, buttoned-up prudes, the Victorians reveled in these newly created "palaces of pleasure".

From the acclaimed biographer - the fascinating, little-known story of a Victorian-era murder that rocked literary London, leading Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, and Queen Victoria herself to wonder: Can a novel kill?

It is generally accepted that Queen Victoria reigned but did not rule. This couldn’t be more wrong. In Queen Victoria and Her Prime Ministers, Anne Somerset masterfully traces Victoria’s political evolution, from headstrong teenager to seasoned octogenarian. This book demonstrates her passionate involvement in state affairs, and casts fresh light on her relationships with her ten prime ministers.

From 1845 to 1852, the Great Hunger, also referred to as the "Potato Famine", was a period of a lot of starvation and illness in Ireland. The period was known in Irish at the time as a "Drochshaol"—loosely translated as "the hard days", or actually "the bad life"—with the most badly affected districts in the west and south of Ireland, where the Irish language was popular. The year 1847, at times called "Black '47", was the absolute worst year of the period. Around one million people died, and over a million left the nation throughout the Great Famine.

Headstrong, high-spirited, and already widowed, Isabella Walker became Mrs. Henry Robinson at age 31 in 1844. Isabella chose to record her innermost thoughts - and especially her infatuation with a married Dr. Edward Lane - in her diary. One day Henry chanced on the diary and, broaching its privacy, read Isabella's entries. Aghast at his wife's perceived infidelity, Henry petitioned for divorce on the grounds of adultery. The trial would be a cause célèbre, threatening the foundations of Victorian society.

Step into the Victorian underworld of Angel Meadow, the vilest and most dangerous slum of the Industrial Revolution. In the shadow of the world's first cotton mill, 30,000 souls trapped by poverty are fighting for survival as the British Empire is built upon their backs.

The Napoleonic Wars radically altered the old, established European power dynamics, and in 1795, the British, now emerging as the globe’s naval superpower, assumed control of the Cape as part of the spoils of war. In doing so, they recognized the enormous strategic value of the Cape as global shipping routes were developing and expanding. Possession passed back and forth once or twice, but more or less from that point onward, the British established their presence at the Cape, which they held until the unification of South Africa in 1910.

Humans are pattern-matching creatures, and astrology is our grandest pattern-matching game. In this ingenious work of history, data scientist Alexander Boxer examines a treasure trove of esoteric classical sources to expose the deep imaginative framework by which - for millennia - we made sense of our fates. Astrology, he argues, was the ancient world's most ambitious applied mathematics problem, a grand data-analysis enterprise sustained by some of history's most brilliant minds, from Ptolemy to al-Kindi to Kepler.

The only copy of a novel is found after 100 years. The author’s husband destroyed all the others. Was it too true to life? How was it found? HAPPINESS written by Countess Sofia Zubov in 1902: a Lithuanian-Polish-Russian novel set at the turn of the 20th Century in Lithuania. A story of recovered Lithuanian family history across three languages and three generations. The book contains the novel in English. Plus a history of Sofia and Vladimir Zubov's life and family. In addition, the story of how the book came to light, a timeline of the author's life, and a brief account of the historical...

As the train rattled westward on the outskirts of Dublin, James Berry didn’t stand out amongst his fellow passengers, but they couldn’t see the long, Italian silk rope coiled in the black leather bag by his side, nor the white cap and pinion straps, nor the revolver in his coat pocket. Galway, the winter of 1885. The violent murders of John Moylan, killed on a dark country lane, and Alice Burns, shot dead in the dining room of the Royal Hotel, have shaken the county. Now, following painstaking investigations and charged courtroom drama, justice beckons for the guilty parties.

Young Abigail suffers greatly from the way she is being raised by her mother, for whom a woman's only place is in the kitchen. At the same time, her father's dedicated fight for freedom also ignites in her a passion for the American Revolution. When news of her father's death reaches her, she has a falling out with her mother. Soon after, Abigail goes on her way to fight for freedom and independence, like her father had done. On the way, she encounters the young English deserter Edward, who has come to the realization that he went to war for the wrong ideals.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Victorians, written and read by Jacob Rees-Mogg. They built a nation. Now it’s our turn. Many associate the Victorian era with austere social attitudes and filthy factories. But in this bold and provocative book, Jacob Rees-Mogg - leading Tory MP and prominent Brexit advocate - takes up the story of 12 landmark figures to paint a very different picture of the age: one of bright ambition, bold self-belief and determined industriousness.

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.

A Romance Novel Set in Wessex's Gibraltar during the Late 19th Century"Loves of a Stony Heart" is a gorgeously crafted romance novel teeming with evocative tales of unrequited love, longing, and the relentless pursuit of individual identity. Set against the quaint yet mystifying rural backdrop of Wessex's Gibraltar in the late 19th century, the narrative eloquently captures the stark contrast between burgeoning urban life and timeless rural traditions. Delicate Bonds and Complex Love TrianglesHighlighted by the complicated and contrast-filled relationships between London-bred sculptor ...

John Ward was a self-taught artist, the son of a Master Mariner, who began his career apprenticed to a house and ship painter in Hull. Having completed his term by 1819, aged 21, he exhibited his first painting at the Royal Academy twelve years later. By the early 1840’s, he had begun to explore printmaking to produce ship portraits of local vessels and to gather material for a Manual of Marine Painting. “Marine Studies of British Merchant Vessels” and “Ten Views Illustrative of the Several Rates and Classes of Vessels in Her Majesty’s Navy” appeared as albums of lithographs ...

For generations, the history of the British Empire was written by its victors. British historians' accounts of conquest guided the consolidation of imperial rule in India, the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean. Their narratives of the development of imperial governance licensed the brutal suppression of colonial rebellion. Their reimagining of empire during the two World Wars compromised the force of decolonisation. In this brilliant work, Priya Satia shows how these historians not only interpreted the major political events of their time but also shaped the future that followed.

They both believe she is timid and fragile, until her grandfather's will forces them to learn how very strong she truly is.Living in fear, Mae Alden learned cowardice could protect her. Now, with her tyrannical grandfather dead, she dares imagine life can be different, until a flood of disasters spew from his horrifying will and extinguish all but the tiniest hope. In despair, this Boston blueblood seeks help from the attorney who executed the will, but after making a disastrous first impression, she doubts he will assist her. James Collins thinks quiet Mae would make an ideal wife. When ...

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.

An arranged marriage, an abusive family, a dream of freedom in America just out of reach.... After Meg Westmoreland’s father mysteriously dies when she’s a small child, her life quickly spirals out of control. Her mother is mean and manipulative, her uncle abusive in a way Meg won’t even speak of. Getting away from them becomes an obsession. When she discovers she’s been promised to a wealthy American, she’ll do whatever she must to flee the only home she’s ever known in Southampton, hoping for a new life in America and a chance to start over, even if it means leaving behind the...

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.