John Snow was a number of things. Besides personifying the Victorian expansion of the middle classes (and you have, of course read the blog on the subject of that expansion […]
Victorians ranged from the hard-headed or shifty to the pure-minded, the intellectual, the literary and the enquiring. Whoever they were, apparently, it didn’t stop them from being attracted to spiritualism. This was a craze akin – according to some – a separate religion.
How could this be? Someone recently asked me […]
Women have been sewing for everybody else for millennia. Straining their eyes late into the night – try to imagine trying to thread a needle or keep the stitching straight and tiny in candlelight. And that would no doubt have been just the one candle, given the cost. In northern […]
Those who have kept up with this series of blogs on Victorians (and of course you ALL have) will know by now that in that age, all was not quite as the novelists described. Humans, after all, are complex creatures, and aren’t always inclined to reveal all of the warts. […]
It’s appropriate that the so many of the nineteenth century’s great thinkers in the UK were such passionate political sociologists. After all, Karl Marx it was who pointed out that capitalism was the necessary precursor for socialism. And now was the time when capitalism took off – creating an urban […]
Victorian children in Britain didn’t have wardrobes and chests full of toys and games, in general. There was none of that blinking, blurping buzzing stuff on phones and games sets that they have now. Land sakes, even I made up some of my own toys and games when I was […]
At last, the blog about Victorian feminists, I hear you say! Well yes, by 1860 in Britain there was indeed a nascent feminist movement, the direct consequence of the rise of the middle class, the supremacy of urban life, education, the explosion in the printing industry and a few other […]
There is mention of bigamy in my novel What Empty Things Are These. I won’t say more about those details, since there may be one or two of you out there who haven’t read it. Hard to believe…. But there you are.
As I was saying: bigamy. While I was thinking […]
Ah, my friends, you’re back. I promised you a look at shonky Victorians who took advantage of burgeoning capitalism and the leap to the fore of intrepreneurialism … and inspired a major character in my book, What Empty Things Are These. So did The Way […]
This month, I’m continuing with the theme of women in 1860 (or thereabouts), and their relationship with each other. It’s a not-so-subtle, and not at all minor, sub-theme in What Empty Things Are These (or WETAT for short). And you will recognise references to the […]
