Worse, she is told by his bankers that he gambled away their fortune. Now, the family's hope rests on The Larkspur, an old abandoned coaching inn in the quaint village of Gresham.Driven by dread and her desire to provide for her children, Julia decides to turn the dilapidated inn into a lodging house. But can she--who was accustomed to servants attending to every need--do what needs to be done and cope when boarders begin arriving? And then an eligible new vicar moves into town...

    Isabel Arundell was a schoolgirl, the scion of England's most distinguished Catholic family. When she first saw him while walking at a seaside resort, Richard Burton had already made his mark as a linguist (he was fluent in twenty-nine languages), scholar, soldier, and explorer--at once a symbol of Victorian England's vision of empire and an avowed rebel against its mores. When she turned and saw him staring after her, she decided that she would marry him. By their next meeting, Burton had become the first infidel to infiltrate Mecca as one of the faithful, and, in an expedition to discover the source of the Nile, would soon be the first white man to see Lake Tanganyika. After being married, the Burtons traveled and experienced the world, from diplomatic postings in Brazil and Africa to hair-raising adventures in the Syrian desert. In later life Richard courted further controversy as a self-proclaimed erotologist and the translator of The Kama Sutra. Based on previously unavailable archives, Mary Lovell has written a compelling joint biography that sets Isabel in her proper place as Burton's equal in daring and endurance, a fascinating figure in her own right.

    He was the youngest, a strong-willed, likeable character with an immense thirst for life who faced two overwhelming handicaps. One was haemophilia, then barely understood, which might have killed him at any moment, and in any case subjected him to recurring pain and disability. The other was his mother’s determination to keep complete control over his life. Leopold’s struggle for independence is a compelling human story, using previously unseen correspondence to explore his illness and treatment, his troubled and often stormy relationship with the Queen, and his place in the royal family. It touches on the wider worlds of Victorian Oxford and of literature, art and politics and the varied friendships he made, with Lewis Carroll, John Ruskin, Oscar Wilde, and Disraeli among others. Set against this background, Leopold’s story is a moving account of one man’s search against the odds for personal happiness and a meaningful role in the world.

    Two of these princesses would themselves produce children of immense consequence. All five would curiously come to share many of the social restrictions and familial machinations borne by nineteenth-century women of less-exulted class.Victoria and Albert's precocious firstborn child, Vicky, wed a Prussian prince in a political match her high-minded father hoped would bring about a more liberal Anglo-German order. That vision met with disaster when Vicky's son Wilhelm-- to be known as Kaiser Wilhelm-- turned against both England and his mother, keeping her out of the public eye for the rest of her life. Gentle, quiet Alice had a happier marriage, one that produced Alexandra, later to become Tsarina of Russia, and yet another Victoria, whose union with a Battenberg prince was to found the present Mountbatten clan. However, she suffered from melancholia and died at age thirty-five of what appears to have been a deliberate, grief-fueled exposure to the diphtheria germs that had carried away her youngest daughter. Middle child Helena struggled against obesity and drug addition but was to have lasting effect as Albert's literary executor. By contrast, her glittering and at times scandalous sister Louise, the most beautiful of the five siblings, escaped the claustrophobic stodginess of the European royal courts by marrying a handsome Scottish commoner, who became governor general of Canada, and eventually settled into artistic salon life as a respected sculptor. And as the baby of the royal brood of nine, rebelling only briefly to forge a short-lived marriage, Beatrice lived under the thumb of her mother as a kind of personal secretary until the queen's death.Principally researched at the houses and palaces of its five subjects in London, Scotland, Berlin, Darmstadt, and Ottawa-- and entertainingly written by an experienced biographer whose last book concerned Victoria's final days-- Victoria's Daughters closely examines a generation of royal women who were dominated by their mother, married off as much for political advantage as for love, and finally passed over entirely with the accession of their n0 brother Bertie to the throne. Packard provides valuable insights into their complex, oft-tragic lives as daughters of their time.

    Generations of innovators tried and failed to develop speedier messaging devices. But in the mid-1800s, a few extraordinary pioneers at last succeeded. Their invention--the electric telegraph--shrank the world more quickly than ever before.A colorful tale of scientific discovery and technological cunning, The Victorian Internet tells the story of the telegraph's creation and remarkable impact, and of the visionaries, oddballs, and eccentrics who pioneered it. By 1865 telegraph cables spanned continents and oceans, revolutionizing the ways countries dealt with one another. The telegraph gave rise to creative business practices and new forms of crime. Romances blossomed over the wires. Secret codes were devised by some users, and cracked by others. The benefits of the network were relentlessly hyped by its advocates and dismissed by its skeptics. And attitudes toward everything from news gathering to war had to be completely rethought. The telegraph unleashed the greatest revolution in communications since the development of the printing press. Its saga offers many parallels to that of the Internet in our own time--and is a fascinating episode in the history of technology.

    Her masterworks were written after years of living an unconventional life, including a scandalous voyage to Europe with the married writer and editor George Henry Lewes. The scandal intensified when she moved in with Lewes after he separated from his wife. Eliot re-entered London's social life years later, when her literary success made it impossible for respectable society to dismiss her (even Queen Victoria enjoyed her books). She counted among her friends and supporters Dickens, Trollope, and several other Victorian literati. In this intimate biography, author Hughes provides insight into Eliot's life and work, weighing Eliot's motivations for her controversial actions, and examining the paradoxical Victorian society which she documented to perfection in her novels.

    Although she photographed many of the major male figures of the 19th century, the bulk of her work consists of portraits of women. This stunning book is the first to concentrate on this central aspect of Cameron's work, providing new information and insights about one of photography's most visionary practitioners.

    At Long Reach farm, Eliza Goodall teaches Poppy all the skills she would have passed on to her own daughter: the skills that would enable a young lady to become the mistress of a farm just like Long Reach. And when the time comes for Eliza's son Richard to choose a wife, it seems only natural that he should choose Poppy. But though she feels nothing but affection for Richard and all her new family, the only man for whom she has ever felt love is an Irish boy, Conn MacConnell. And when he returns unexpectedly, Poppy has to choose between loyalty and love.

    In Reading the Pre-Raphaelites, author Tim Barringer draws on an imaginative selection of paintings, drawings, and photographs to suggest that the dynamic energy of Pre-Raphaelitism arose out of the paradoxes at its heart. Past and present, historicism and modernity, symbolism and realism, as well as the tensions between city and country, men and women, worker and capitalist, colonizer and colonized all make appearances within Pre-Raphaelite art. By focusing on these issues, Barringer draws together the strands of revisionist thought on the Pre-Raphaelites and provides a range of stimulating new interpretations of their work.Beautifully illustrated, the revised edition of this authoritative survey traces the history of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and includes new sections on photography as well as a revised introduction and bibliography.

    But many women did their own sewing, often relying on Dressmaking, Up to Date, a how-to book published by the Butterick Publishing Company. First published in 1905 and widely considered the first modern American sewing book, this extremely rare volume is published here complete and unabridged.This Butterick manual provides clear and concise instructions for altering patterns, hand-sewing stitches, and creating shirt-blouses, skirts, wedding and evening gowns, coats, jackets, maternity wear, undergarments, bathrobes, children's clothing, and many other articles of apparel. Today's costume historians and sewing enthusiasts will find fascinating instruction in such long-lost arts as boning a bodice perfectly, creating skirt sweepers and bust enhancers, concealing hooks and eyes, and other vintage dressmaking techniques.An indispensable archive of information on late-Victorian and turn-of-the-century clothing, this volume will be of immense interest to anyone fascinated by the fashion and costume of the period. It will also be of value to needleworkers wanting to create accurate reproductions of Victorian-era costume, or to anyone interested in applying time-honored sewing techniques to a modern wardrobe.

    Within the sophisticated culture of the late Victorian period, Burne-Jones's star rose rapidly, and by the 1880s he had become the establishment artist par excellence, one of the most admired and sought-after painters in Europe. Burne-Jones, in addition to being a successful and innovative painter, was also an important force in the Arts and Crafts movement, working closely with his lifelong friend William Morris in the production of such decorative arts as ceramic tiles, stained glass, large-scale tapestries, and illustrated books to be printed at Morris's renowned Kelmscott Press. Examples of works in all these media are presented in the exhibition, with full-color and black-and-white reproductions of each of the 173 works included in the catalogue.

    This comprehensive treasury of more than 900 crisp black-and-white illustrations ― arranged chronologically and dated by year ― provides a rich pictorial record of clothing styles from that period. Suitable for a wide variety of graphic projects, these cuts will especially appeal to artists and illustrators in search of finely rendered images of authentic Victorian fashions. Selected by graphic artist Carol Belanger Grafton from such vintage sources as Harper's Bazar, La Mode Illustrée, Peterson's Magazine, Godey's Salon de la Mode and Frank Leslie's Ladies' Magazine, the cuts brim with clear detail and old-time flavor as they record a wealth of evolving styles ― from ornate gowns of the mid-1800s, widened by hoop skirts and elaborately enhanced with ribbons, ruffles, laces, and bows, to turn-of-the-century fashions that produced leg-o'-mutton sleeves, narrowed skirts, diminished bustles, and high-necked bodices (except for evening wear, which exhibited a more daring neckline).Here, for copyright-free use, are hundreds of elegant dresses accented with intricately embroidered designs, shirtwaists featuring lace inserts, and row upon row of tiny pleats, tightly laced undergarments, wide-brimmed hats topped with feathers, flowers, and ribbon; beaded handbags, magnificent parasols, fur-trimmed capes, and much, much more.

    For James is hopelessly in love with his wife while Lucy - too young, too serious and too determined to sacrifice happiness to duty - doesn't know what love means.

    Alison Winter's fascinating cultural history traces the history of mesmerism in Victorian society. Mesmerized is both a social history of the age and a lively exploration of the contested territory between science and pseudo-science. "Dazzling. . . . This splendid book . . . gives us a new form of historical understanding and a model for open and imaginative reading."—James R. Kinkaid, Boston Globe"A landmark in the history of science scholarship."—John Sutherland, The Independent"It is difficult to imagine the documentary side of the story being better done than by Winter's well-researched and generously illustrated study. . . . She is a lively and keen observer; and her book is a pleasure to read purely for its range of material and wealth of detail. . . . Fruitful and suggestive."—Daniel Karlin, Times Literary Supplement"An ambitious, sweeping and fascinating historical study. . . . Beautifully written, thoroughly researched, and well-illustrated."—Bernard Lightman, Washington Times

     Upon receiving a card from Sherlock’s brother Mycroft, the duo are debriefed by the Prime Minister on an astounding fact: a man named Rodger Hardy claims to be able to transport matter from one place to another through electricity, in what he calls transposition. As the threat of Hardy selling his discovery to other countries weighs on the Prime Minister, he enlists Holmes to find out whether such a feat is possible, and whether or not Britain has anything to worry about. Can Sherlock solve what seems to be an unsolvable mystery in time, and help Britain? In Sherlock Holmes and the Tick Tock Man, Holmes and Watson are holidaying in Derbyshire when rumours of an unexplained death reach them. The town’s German clock-maker was found dead in his cottage, door wide open, and his pet raven has taken to flying around town, screeching foreign words and putting everyone on edge. The local vicar and physician confide in the duo that, despite the clock-maker’s will indicating he had left a hefty amount of money to the vicarage, no such sum had been found in the cottage, making them believe the death to be premeditated. Unable to resist the mystery, the Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes soon find themselves tangled in a web of secrets. Can Holmes find out what happened, or will the mystery go unanswered? In Sherlock Holmes and the Trophy Room, Sherlock and John are hired by Viscount Siddems to solve a seemingly impossible conundrum. His most prized trophies, kept in a trophy room and surrounded by man traps and geese, so no one can get in unwanted at night, are disappearing from the room, one by one. Seeking help in finding the mystery thief, Lord Siddems enlists the help of the duo to catch the perpetrator and unmask his methods of getting past his security measures. Can Sherlock unmask the thief before he steals again? Sherlock Holmes and the Chinese Junk Affair and Other Stories is a brilliant collection that will be a treat for any fan of the great detective. Roy Templeman, the author, was a primary schoolmaster and has introduced countless children to the immortal characters of Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

    Brody’s readings of Victorian novels, plays, paintings, and science fiction reveal the impossibility of purity and the inevitability of hybridity in representations of ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and race. She amasses a considerable amount of evidence to show that Victorian culture was bound inextricably to various forms and figures of blackness. Opening with a reading of Daniel Defoe’s “A True-Born Englishman,” which posits the mixed origins of English identity, Brody goes on to analyze mulattas typified by Rhoda Swartz in William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, whose mixed-race status reveals the “unseemly origins of English imperial power.” Examining Victorian stage productions from blackface minstrel shows to performances of The Octoroon and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, she explains how such productions depended upon feminized, “black” figures in order to reproduce Englishmen as masculine white subjects. She also discusses H.G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau in the context of debates about the “new woman,” slavery, and fears of the monstrous degeneration of English gentleman. Impossible Purities concludes with a discussion of Bram Stoker’s novella, “The Lair of the White Worm,” which brings together the book’s concerns with changing racial representations on both sides of the Atlantic. This book will be of interest to scholars in Victorian studies, literary theory, African American studies, and cultural criticism.

    An Introduction and brief biographical notes on the poets are included.

    This book looks beyond the brilliant colours of the sweet-shop shelf and consider the ingenuity of sugar boiling and the manufacture of those intriguing avatars of childhood happiness: the humbug, the gobstopper, the peardrop and the stick of rock. As well as a history, it is also a recipe book, with twenty tried and tested methods for sweets ancient and modern. Who has not wondered how they got the marbling into humbugs and the fantastic patterns into Just William’s gobstoppers? The byways of knowledge that are illuminated make this so rewarding. Did you know how they got the letters into rock? How they twisted barley sugar? The difference between fudge and tablet? The connection between humbugs and an Arab sweet from 13th-century Spain (where it was borrowed it from the Persians)?

    Victorian England can be credited with inventing the ideal of the home inviolate, an ideal best condensed in the notion that "an Englishman's home is his castle".It was during this period that the family emerged as a subject of continuous discussion by politicians and of intervention by middle-class reformers. The discussion tended to address specific problems -- domestic violence, juvenile criminality, and the fate of illegitimate children, among others -- rather than focusing on the family as a whole. The reformers not only set the agenda of family-focused debates but also supplied the leadership for a vast array of interventionist groups -- philanthropists, civil servants, magistrates, medical practitioners, educators, and child psychologists -- whose common goal was to save the family, especially the working-class family, from itself.Thus this book shows that long before the building of a modern welfare state, English homes had become targets of regulation: the Englishman's castle possessed neither moat nor drawbridge. It also reveals the extent to which working-class parents participated in a cultural "policing" process; the Victorian poor were never the inert lump of humanity that many contemporaries, and some modern scholars, have supposed. Nor did the weight of schemes to regulate and elevate family conduct fall exclusively on the poor. The book demonstrates that middle-class reformers were not shy about dictating the terms of good parenting to their own class.Charting the origins, elaborations, and limitations of the concept of theideal home is no antiquarian exercise, for the social policy implications bound up with the myth of family privacy persist today. Intellectual critics of the "therapeutic state" such as Christopher Lasch and Michel Foucault hold that the rise of tutelary "experts" -- from social workers to public health inspectors and juvenile court judges -- has subverted parental autonomy. Similarly, populist conservative politicians in both England and the United States attack "welfarist" social programs because they appear to undercut the sense of individual responsibility that allegedly once flourished during a golden age of family strength.

    Knight defined the lavish style of ornamentation associated with Victorian design. With clean lines and artful shading, Knight captured the spirit of the age in fanciful illustrations that combined the sentimental, the intricate, and the fantastic. This extravagant collection of Knight's work, reproduced directly from a rare original 19th-century edition, contains a fabulous assortment of images: elaborate wall murals with trompe-l'oeil effects of chandeliers and fountains; scenes of hunters, flanked by mythological figures; idealized damsels in rustic settings, framed by majestic swirls and garlands of flowers and ivy; and numerous other florid designs. Teeming with motifs in a variety of sizes and styles, this volume boasts a luxuriant supply of designs both floral (leaves, running vines, and blossoms) and animal (realistic and grotesque). A nearly inexhaustible source of versatile, copyright-free designs for artists, illustrators, and craftspeople, this volume will also fascinate all lovers of Victoriana.

    Carole Silver here draws on sources ranging from the anthropological, folkloric, and occult to the legal, historical, and medical. She is the first to anatomize a world peopled by strange beings who have infiltrated both the literary and visual masterpieces and the minor works of the writers and painters of that era.Examining the period of 1798 to 1923, Strange and Secret Peoples focuses not only on such popular literary figures as Charles Dickens and William Butler Yeats, but on writers as diverse as Thomas Carlyle, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Charlotte Mew; on artists as varied as mad Richard Dadd, Aubrey Beardsley, and Sir Joseph Noel Paton; and on artifacts ranging from fossil skulls to photographs and vases. Silver demonstrates how beautiful and monstrous creatures--fairies and swan maidens, goblins and dwarfs, cretins and changelings, elementals and pygmies--simultaneously peopled the Victorian imagination and inhabited nineteenth-century science and belief. Her book reveals the astonishing complexity and fertility of the Victorian consciousness: its modernity and antiquity, its desire to naturalize the supernatural, its pervasive eroticism fused with sexual anxiety, and its drive for racial and imperial dominion.

    An account of the characters and careers of nineteen men who, from the age of Gladstone to that of Attlee, managed or mismanaged Britain's finances.

    Areas covered include: phrenology and mesmerism; theories of dreams, memory, and the unconscious; female and masculine sexuality; insanity and nervous disorders; and theories of degeneration. Texts have been chosen from a wide variety of scientific, medical, and cultural sources to illustrate the social range of these debates. Embodied Selves will be of interest to both specialist and non-specialist audiences in the areas of cultural, literary, historical, and gender studies.

    He brings to his study a thorough knowledge of traditional and contemporary scholarship, which results in an important scholarly book on Victorian fiction and its production." --Choice"Timely, scrupulously researched, thoroughly enlightening, and steadily readable.... A work of agenda-setting historical scholarship." --Garrett StewartFear of mass literacy stalks the pages of Patrick Brantlinger's latest book. Its central plot involves the many ways in which novels and novel reading were viewed--especially by novelists themselves--as both causes and symptoms of rotting minds and moral decay among nineteenth-century readers.