One of my many current projects is digitising the Victorian Fiction Research Guides, a useful collection of  bibliographies covering authors and journals. During the nineteenth century there was an insatiable demand for fiction in all formats, and many writers were churning them out at an astonishing rate. Florence Marryat, the subject of  my thesis, is likely to have written over 200, in addition to her 68 novels. Perhaps more remarkable, however, are some of the titles, which have kept me giggling throughout the  last few weeks:

• Phoebe in Fetters
• A Snail’s Wooing
• The Man with Transparent Legs
• Italics v Plungers
• Romance in a Bungalow
• A Man May Not Marry His Grandmother
• Averse to Soap and Water
• A Weary Day with a Lively Old Lady
• A Remarkable Pair of Pantaloons
• Two Strings to One Beau: A Clerical Experience
• Children Objected To
• The Legs of the Honourable Cat
• Canoodle-oodle-oo
• The Sharpness of Selina’s Elbows
• The Tragedy of a Cardboard Box
• How the Waggoner Filled His Sock, yet Brought Nothing Home
• Billy’s Manhood
• From Soup to Pineapple
• Her Nonny Nonny [surely a typo!]
• Mated by the Motor Car
• Autobiography of a Blouse
• The Illustrious Weasel

Having read a few at random, sadly the titles are often the most entertaining aspect. Still, it’s great fun becoming so absorbed in the richness of Victorian print culture. Please do let me know if you come across any more.

The digitised guides will be available on the Victorian Secrets website from August.

To be decadent in an age of utility was unforgivable, as Frederick Park and Ernest Boulton were to find out in a trial that scandalised London in 1870. Better known as Fanny and Stella, the two young clerks were arrested and charged with outraging public decency by dressing as women and “conspiring to incite others to commit unnatural offences”.  As there were no specific laws against cross-dressing and “unnatural offences” (ie buggery) were difficult to prove, the court case was as oblique as it was sensational.  In this enthralling account, Neil McKenna chronicles the arrest and cross-examination of Ernest “Stella” Boulton and Frederick “Fanny” Park by using court transcriptions and letters between the accused and their circle. Where there are gaps, McKenna uses his imagination, inhabiting their world seamlessly and appropriating the colourful language of fin-de-siècle London.

The jury took just fifty-two minutes to find Fanny and Stella “not guilty”, but the damage to their reputations had already been done, and they were obliged to adopt an uncharacteristically low profile. The building was already surrounded by a crowd baying for the “He-She Ladies,” as they were dubbed, and the press were obsessed with exposing them to ridicule.  Both had tried desperately to conform to traditional ideas of Victorian masculinity, but it wasn’t for them. They delighted in the camp seediness of the demi-monde, putting on performances and attracting attention (and business) from handsome young men. Stella had even managed to bag herself an aristocrat, Lord Arthur Clinton, with whom she lived as husband and wife. As her elective “sister”, Fanny often stayed with them, too. Their lively milieu included gaudy prostitutes called Lady Jane Grey and the Maid of Athens.

Although some of their activities would raise eyebrows even in today’s more permissive society, Fanny and Stella’s “crimes” were victimless. It came as a great surprise, therefore, to find themselves in a police station and subjected to deeply humiliating examinations. Even more surprising was the revelation that they had been under surveillance for a whole year, with police officers watching them day and night and also rummaging through their belongings. The court case served only to expose the hypocrisy and bigotry of those who sought to entrap them, especially those who derived perverse pleasure from their ordeal. The failure of the authorities to prosecute Fanny and Stella came as a huge relief to the liberal-minded, who feared that a guilty verdict would have initiated a crusade against anyone who dared to be different.

While Fanny and Stella had more detractors than supporters, their own families were surprisingly sympathetic.  Indeed, Mrs Boulton almost steals the show when she takes to the witness box. She loved her son for who he was, tenaciously supporting him throughout and not giving a hoot what anybody thought. Her refusal to believe that Stella was touting for business came across at the time as affecting innocence, but a modern cynic might see it as craftily disingenuous.

McKenna’s writing style is unashamedly camp as his subjects, but it suits the book perfectly, giving a sense of their exuberance and vivacity. His genuine enthusiasm and affection for the subject is evident on every page. The research is impeccable and story placed firmly within its historical context, without distracting the reader from the stars of this show.  Usually consigned to the footnotes of Victorian history, here Fanny and Stella are given the prominence they deserve.

Fanny and Stella is available in hardback and Kindle editions.

The trouble with reading a lot of Victorian potboilers is that they start to seem like reality. The madwoman in the attic is a pervasive image throughout nineteenth-century culture, from Bertha Mason, through to Laura Fairlie and Lady Audley. In this gripping and insightful study, Sarah Wise reveals that it was actually husbands who were most at risk of being detained against their will. It makes sense when you think about it: men were the main inheritors of wealth, also assuming their wife’s property upon marriage. Consequently, there was a “high bar” set for men to prove themselves fit to control that wealth, and every incentive for their enemies to demonstrate otherwise.

In Inconvenient People, Wise focuses on twelve case histories, embellishing them with details from many more, and the depth of research builds a rich narrative. Some of the stories are harrowing, other plain bizarre, and there’s also the occasional moment of levity, such as the man who thought one of his legs belonged to Madame Vestris. Wise has an acute eye for comic detail, but never trivialises the subject.

The case I found most haunting was that of Edward Davies, a socially awkward tea trader from London, whose mother confined him to a lunatic asylum so that she could seize his share of their flourishing business. His gaucheness was almost his undoing, with every action seen as confirmation of his insanity. He suffered greatly from the loss of privacy and dignity; continuously under surveillance, even his bowel movements were observed and measured.

Of course, the stereotypical madwoman in the attic did have some basis in fact, perhaps epitomised by the unhappy wife of the uncelebrated author, Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Wise made me squeal with delight when she described his “flatulent, mouldy prose style’. He didn’t have much to commend him as a human being, either – sending his children to a boarding house when they were will, and insisting they addressed him as “Mr Bulwer”. Bulwer-Lytton also mistreated his bewitchingly beautiful wife, Rosina. When eight months pregnant, he made her repeatedly climb the library stairs to fetch books, kicking her in the torso when she protested. This was one of many violent attacks. Unlike many Victorian women, Rosina refused to suffer in silence, publicly humiliating her husband whenever she got the chance. When he campaigned to be elected as an MP, Rosina made a surprise appearance at the hustings, prompting him to run away in terror (some accounts claim he fainted). She then lectured the assembled throng on her husband’s shortcomings. Bulwer-Lytton wreaked his revenge by having her confined to an asylum, beyond the reach of friends and family. Even there she was able to attract attention, loudly proclaiming to passers-by that Disraeli was a sodomite and having an affair with her husband. Although her remaining years were marred by bitterness and ostracism, Rosina did at least have the satisfaction of outliving her husband by seven years.

The redoubtable Georgina Weldon was more effective at curtailing her own husband’s attempt to bury her away. In court she successfully challenged both him and the mad-doctors who had tried to snatch her at his behest. Her experiences subsequently influenced a change in the lunacy laws, as she had clearly demonstrated how sane person could be detained for no good reason.

As Wise observes, part of the problem lay in the definition of “sanity”, which she describes as “a Mad Hatter’s tea party of shifting positions”. All too often, “insanity” meant a failure to conform to somebody else’s expectations. Unfortunately, some lessons were not learned, and the book concludes with the depressing story of three women discovered languishing in an asylum in the 1970s. Between them they had served 110 years for having a child out of wedlock in the 1920s. It’s a particularly chilling example, and one that illustrates perfectly the abuse of power that underpins our definition of madness.

Inconvenient People is an important book, and one that contributes an enormous amount to our understanding of the nineteenth century.

Inconvenient People is available in hardback and Kindle editions.

Anyone who has developed their own photographs will recall that miraculous moment as the image slowly materialises before your very eyes. The story behind the discovery of this alchemical technique is no less exciting.

As with most good stories, there is a rivalry at it heart, albeit an unintentional one. During the 1830s two men on opposite sides of the Channel threw their considerable talents into one quest: to permanently capture a camera image on paper. Their characters couldn’t have been more different. Louis Daguerre was a flamboyant artist of humble parentage and limited education; Henry Fox Talbot had been born into the English landed gentry and went on to graduate from Cambridge. Talbot was the archetypal gentleman scientist, funding his hobby with a generous trust fund; Daguerre, meanwhile, was obliged to earn while he learned, becoming an extraordinarily accomplished painter of stage effects. Notwithstanding their differences, both men managed to simultaneously develop their own process for ‘capturing the light’.

In Capturing the Light, Helen Rappaport and Roger Watson unravel the drama surrounding these pioneering men in alternate chapters, conveying the complexity of scientific ideas through clear and engaging prose . Those on Talbot reflect the orderliness of a man who blessed future biographers with 10,000 letters and 300 notebooks. While his life is meticulously documented, Daguerre’s is obfuscated by a web of apocryphal stories and the cultivation of a personal mythology.

Contrasted with the mercurial Daguerre, Talbot comes across as rather ponderous, and it comes as no surprise when the enterprising Frenchman grabs all the glory with his daguerrotype. Although Talbot had by then perfected his own calotype process, it was Daguerre’s invention that was announced to the world in January 1839. His notebooks show that the original idea had popped into Talbot’s head while on honeymoon at Lake Como in 1833, yet he didn’t stir himself to publish any papers. Thanks to this dithering, Talbot earned the ridicule of his peers and even to this day has never received the credit he deserves. Possibly far worse was the disappointment of his mother, Lady Elisabeth, who devoted her remaining years to chivying him into action, outraged that her clever son has proved so inept at self-promotion.

While Talbot kicked himself, the scientific community seized on these new discoveries, quickly refining them into the processes we recognise today. The press were divided, with one newspaper dismissing photography as “drawing by sunshine”, and another exhorting its readers to tie photogenic paper to the tail of a kite so “when it comes down you will have a view of the earth upon it” (an early form of Google Streetview, perhaps?) Others were quick to spot more covert applications. In 1839 the Morning Post reported on a jealous French husband obtaining photographic evidence of his wife’s infidelity and successfully presenting it in court. By the end of the century, the same newspaper was marveling that the camera had “become as indispensable as the bicycle”. These days photography has become an almost everyday activity, and even an inadvertent one. When clearing personal data from a mobile phone recently, I was astonished to discover over 200 photos of the inside of my handbag.

Capturing the Light reads like a  historical thriller, the well-paced narrative evoking both the exhilaration and frustration experienced by those in the vanguard of scientific discovery.

Having led an unexpectedly irreligious life for a Pope, my current thesis chapter on nineteenth-century Catholicism is involving a great deal of background reading. Thank you, therefore, to OUP for a very timely review copy of Marina Warner’s Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary. This book is an ambitious study of the changing symbolism of the Mother of God, seen through the shifting social perspectives of the last millennium, and it caused controversy when it was first published in 1976. The preface to this new edition examines the response from some of its detractors, and Warner also retracts her original conclusion that the cult of the Virgin would be soon consigned to history. Although the debate is complex, Warner’s writing is lucid and engaging, and her book is a really good read. For heathens like me who rely on Father Ted for ecclesiastical knowledge, Alone of All Her Sex is a thought-provoking and comprehensive introduction to this influential figure.

I’ve also received a copy of Warner’s Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism which looks to be every bit as good.

As Russophobia gripped Britain, the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854 provoked joy among many who wanted to give the “Rooshians” a jolly good beating. At the forefront of the warmongers was Queen Victoria, who longed to don armour and join soldiers on the frontline. But this imagined glory soon faded to reveal the harsh realities of conflict, and the queen spent much of her time writing letters of condolence to bereaved families, and also quietly funding the fitting of prosthetic limbs for the injured.

The bungled Charge of the Light Brigade left the reputation of the British military in tatters, and the subsequent squabbles were just as unedifying. Further battles were similarly devastating, leaving thousands dead or seriously wounded, and the bitterly cold weather compounded the prevailing sense of misery. Finally, the authorities back home realised that help was needed and despatched a part of thirty-eight nurses. Among them was Florence Nightingale, a remarkable woman whose forceful character often dominates accounts of the Crimea. Although in the book Helen Rappaport credits Nightingale’s many achievements, her focus is on the women whose stories remain largely untold: Fanny Duberly, the energetic and indomitable officer’s wife, whose eyewitness accounts of key battles give us a uniquely vivid perspective on the human (and equine) cost of war; and Mary Seacole, the Jamaican-born nurse who overcame institutional racism in her determination to help the men risking their lives.

It is Mary Seacole who really shines in Rappaport’s magnificent book. Although she had considerable nursing experience, Seacole was turned down as an official volunteer on the grounds that a “West Indian constitution is no the one best able to bear the fatigue of nurse,”  a spectacularly offensive and fatuous claim, given Britain’s earlier willingness to exploit black women as slaves. Undaunted, Seacole simply paid for her own transport, establishing herself just outside Balaclava. There she set up ‘The British Hotel’, providing home comforts to the military, and also acting as “doctress, nurse, and mother”. Although she attracted criticism for running what was in some respect a clubhouse, that was exactly what the men wanted, and the prices paid by officers meant that Seacole could distribute free food to the poor soldiers. Apart from making life more comfortable for her visitors, Seacole also possessed the same skill and experience of a male doctor, and her medical interventions improved the recovery prospects of many wounded men.

Given her significant contribution, it is hard to fathom why Mary Seacole has been effectively whitewashed from our history. If Lords Cardigan, Raglan and Lucan can be remembered for their incompetence, then why shouldn’t Seacole be immortalised for her bravery and compassion? Historians, including Helen Rappaport, have done much to raise awareness, but some of this good work has been undone by Michael Gove in his misguided attempt to remove Seacole from the National Curriculum. While it is true that her contribution specifically to the nursing profession did not rival that of Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole is undeniably an important part of our history, and a figure who represents our diversity. Let us celebrate this enterprising and inspirational woman.

No Place for Ladies: the Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War is available in Kindle and EPUB editions. To find out more, please visit the Victorian Secrets website.

If you’d like to help recognise Mary Seacole’s achievements and place in history, please consider making a donation to the Mary Seacole Memorial Appeal.

First published in 1887, Gissing intended Thyrza to “contain the very spirit of London working-class life”. He spent long hours researching the novel in south London, watching and listening to the inhabitants as they went about their business.  His story tells of Walter Egremont, an Oxford-trained idealist who gives lectures on literature to workers, some of them from his father’s Lambeth factory. Thyrza Trent, a young hat-trimmer, meets and falls in love with him, forsaking Gilbert Grail, an intelligent working man who Egremont has put in charge of his library.

Thyrza  is one of Gissing’s most memorable characters. Although blessed with an artistic sensibility, she is faced with the insuperable difficulty of rising beyond her social class, a trick Gissing himself had achieved. Her determination to succeed makes her vulnerable to the charms of Egremont, who vacillates between her and the middle-class Annabel Newthorpe. As is often the case with Gissing, ambition leads to betrayal and disillusionment and the ending is far from happy.

Thyrza is the embodiment of Gissing’s preoccupation with sex, class and money, and through her he exposes a society intrinsically opposed to social mobility. The juxtaposition of rich and poor is illustrated in the accompanying maps, specially drawn by the folks in the Geography Department of UCL.

This isn’t a particularly uplifting read, but it’s perhaps Gissing’s greatest artistic achievement, and also his most sympathetic portrait of London’s poor. In a letter Gissing wrote, “Thyrza herself is one of the most beautiful dreams I ever had or shall have. I value the book really more than anything I have yet done.” Contemporary critics praised Gissing’s “profound…knowledge of the London poor” and his “courageous presentation of truth”.  This “truth” included describing the “meanness and inveterate grime” of the Caledonian Road and a Lambeth “redolent with oleaginous matter”. Perhaps it’s one to save for a sunny day.

Thyrza is available in paperback and Kindle editions. To find out more, please visit Victorian Secrets.

I’ve been trying not to buy books of late, so a recent flurry of review copies from OUP has been particularly welcome. To my shame, I’ve never read Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies, but can’t wait to dig in to this particularly handsome edition, whose arrival was marked by the excited squeal of assembled bibliophiles. It’s the story of Tom, a young chimney-sweep’s boy who one day falls into a river and is transformed into a water-baby. His new life brings him encounters with friendly fish, curious lobsters, and extraordinary characters, such as Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby. The imaginative story is also informed by Kingsley’s views on issues such as child labour and the education system. This new edition includes an introduction by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, the original illustrations, and a lovely blue ribbon. Anyone interested in the legacy of this novel should read Essie Fox’s stunning novel Elijah’s Mermaid, which I’ll be reviewing soon.

In Ceremonies of Bravery, J. Robert Maguire studies the friendship between Oscar Wilde and Carlos Blacker. The two men met in the 1880s, the period when Wilde was judged by many to be ‘at his best’, and Blacker went on to become a trustee of Wilde’s marriage settlement. Wilde declared Blacker ‘the truest of friends and the most sympathetic of companions’, and diaries and letters show that the men were close confidantes for almost two decades, a period during which both endured personal crises and disgrace. However, the relationship came to an abrupt end in June 1898. Carlos Blacker recorded prophetically in his diary, ‘After lunch just before dinner letter from Oscar which put an end to our friendship forever’. I’d never heard of Blacker before, so am looking forward to learning more about this curious relationship.

One of my many literary new year resolutions was to finally get to grips with Henry James, so hopefully a new edition of The Aspern Papers and Other Stories is what I need to get going.  This collection also includes ‘The Death of the Lion’, ‘The Figure in the Carpert’ and ‘The Birthplace’, and is accompanied by a critical introduction from Adrian Poole and extract from James’ notebooks. Time will tell whether I accomplish my mission, or simply end up reading East Lynne again.

My rather dog-eared copy of Thomas de Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater has been consigned to the charity shop, now that I have this shiny new edition, with its extensive introduction, author biography and bibliography from Robert Morrison. I’m publishing a book on nineteenth-century addiction later this year, so have the perfect excuse to read this lurid account of drug abuse.

I shall need a clear head to get me through Mathematics in Victorian Britain, a book that promises to take the reader on “a splendid walk through the garden of Victorian mathematics. As we know, the Victorians were an innovative bunch, making spectacular advances in many areas. Mathematics was no exception, and their legacy includes: matrices, vectors, Boolean algebra, histograms, and standard deviation. Blimey.

One of the many things I love about the Victorians is their insatiable inquisitiveness. This is exemplified in Victorian Curiosities, a collection of stray facts and figures whose charm lies  in its total unpredictability. It is based on Don Lemon’s 1890 Everybody’s Scrapbook of Curious Facts and has been enhanced by a selection of contemporary (and often hilarious) illustrations.

Among the advice dispensed is ‘When to Pare the Finger Nails’, ‘How to Tell a Person’s Age’, and how to chose a wife, based on the month in which she was born. Apparently, women born in November are “liberal, kind, and of a mild disposition.” Spot on!

More profound are the entries on methods of dispatching criminals around the world and popular embalming techniques, along with many more on scientific questions of the day.

My favourite entry is ‘Newspaper Names in the Far West’, which include the Cinamon Herald and Kansas Sod House and the Astonisher and Paralyzer (surely the model for some of our tabloids).

Although perhaps the perfect book for the smallest room in the house, this is actually my first ebook-only edition, one of three out-of-print titles that I shall be resurrecting this year. The other two are Helen Rappaport’s No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War and Jenny Bourne Taylor’s In the Secret Theatre of Home, a seminal study of Wilkie Collins’s fiction. More news soon.

Find out more about Victorian Curiosities, or buy it on Amazon. Also available in an EPUB edition through all major channels.

How many books read in 2012?

101, which isn’t very many for me. I seem to spend much of my time re-reading manuscripts at the moment, and also skimming academic texts. Once my PhD is finished I shall revert to devouring three a week.

Fiction/Non-Fiction ratio?

42 fiction, 59 non-fiction. I thought I’d spent most of my time reading biographies, but obviously not.

Male/Female authors?

47 male, 55 female (I know that doesn’t add up, but one book was jointly-authored)

Favourite

I’m never very good at picking an overall favourite, so here are my top five in no particular order:

• The Day Parliament Burned Down by Caroline Shenton
  
• Any Human Heart by William Boyd
• Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal by Jeanette Winterson
• Into the Frame: The Four Loves of Ford Madox Brown by Angela Thirlwell
• Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England by Sarah Wise

Least favourite?

Dr Phillips: A Maida Vale Idyll. It was an interesting novel (and very useful for my thesis), but it’s exceptionally racist, even by nineteenth-century standards, and I found it difficult to read.

Oldest book read?

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas de Quincey. Appropriately, I read it while on heavy-duty painkillers for a dodgy back.

Newest?

Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England by Sarah Wise, which I devoured as soon as it was published, having keenly anticipated its arrival. It didn’t disappoint.

Longest book title?

People from the Other Side: the Enigmatic Fox Sisters and the History of Spiritualism by the lovely Maurice Leonard

Shortest title?

Stet by Diana Athill, which is also one of my favourites.

How many re-reads?

8, including (inevitably) Diary of a Nobody.

Most books read by one author this year?

The honours go to Florence Marryat. Much as I love her, there are many I would cheerfully never read again.

Any in translation?

Just the one: Anna, the Professor’s Daughter by Anna Daal. It’s a rather odd Dutch novel about vivisection.

And how many of this year’s books were from the library?

16, and I borrowed many more for research purposes. Libraries are one of our most precious resources.