In spite of her own despair, she is determined to protect her brother Tom and her baby son Georgie from Jacob's bullying ways - for she is all they have in the world. But when Jacob hires villainous Salter and his vile wife Sal to run the barge, Effie's life becomes even more unbearable, and Tom is sent packing without a penny to his name. Forced to live on deck with little to shelter her and Georgie from the elements, tormented by the Salters, Effie is driven to desperation. And stealing Jacob's hidden cache of money she escapes with her son. As she begins her frantic search for Tom, Effie vows that whatever happens she will make a home for little Georgie and keep him safe from harm.

    And it is all Irene can do to keep the family together. Billy's addiction soon leads him into trouble. Despite having been brought up by her father to fear and distrust the police, Irene finds herself forced to collaborate with them to save her father from ruin. But Billy's errant ways finally catch up with him and he is imprisoned in Newgate jail. With her mother away from home, a desperate Irene has little choice but to seek help from Inspector Edward Kent - her sworn enemy. For only she can clear her father's name and unite the family once more ...

    Polly, living in grinding poverty, loses her mother in childbirth and finds herself alone on the streets of Hull. Rosalie, brought up in affluence and comfort on the other side of town, loses her own mother in similar circumstances and on the same day. Polly takes a job as scullery maid in Rosalie's lonely house, and the two girls form an unlikely friendship. Traveling to the North Yorkshire Moors they discover a new kind of life and find unexpected joy and fulfillment.

    their doctors."It was the dog who found me."Such is the stark confession launching the harrowing scene that begins The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls as Emilie Autumn, a young musician on the verge of a bright career, attempts suicide by overdosing on the antipsychotics prescribed to treat her bipolar disorder. Upon being discovered, Emilie is revived and immediately incarcerated in a maximum-security psych ward, despite her protestations that she is not crazy, and can provide valid reasons for her actions if someone would only listen.Treated as a criminal, heavily medicated, and stripped of all freedoms, Emilie is denied communication with the outside world, and falls prey to the unwelcome attentions of Dr. Sharp, head of the hospital's psychiatry department. As Dr. Sharp grows more predatory by the day, Emilie begins a secret diary to document her terrifying experience, and to maintain her sanity in this environment that could surely drive anyone mad. But when Emilie opens her notebook to find a desperate letter from a young woman imprisoned within an insane asylum in Victorian England, and bearing her own name and description, a portal to another world is blasted wide open.As these letters from the past continue to appear, Emilie escapes further into this mysterious alternate reality where sisterhoods are formed, romance between female inmates blossoms, striped wallpaper writhes with ghosts, and highly intellectual rats speak the Queen's English.But is it real? Or is Emilie truly as mad as she is constantly told she is?The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls blurs harsh reality and magical historical fantasy whilst issuing a scathing critique of society's treatment of women and the mental health care industry's treatment of its patients, showing in the process that little has changed throughout the ages.Welcome to the Asylum. Are you committed?

    - Times Online, 1/30/09

    Accompanying the series, this book follows the team as they try to run a farm using only materials and resources that would have been available to them in the Victorian era. This was a crucial period in the history of Britain—rapid industrialization had radically changed life in the cites but rural communities used a mixture of centuries-old and pioneering modern practices. Packed with informative text and photographs from the farm year, this book reveals exactly what the Victorians, ate, wore, how they managed their animals, farmed the land, and organized their lives. In-depth features describe revolutionary advances in more detail, including new inventions, new breeding methods, and advances in agricultural science. Practical projects allow you to join the historians in rediscovering Victorian crafts, cooking, and home care. Providing a real insight into life on a Victorian farm, this series is also a fascinating reminder of how history comes full circle. The organic diet of 1885, use of natural products for cleaning and healthcare, and interests in crafts and gardening are of increasing relevance today as we look for a more responsible way of living more than 120 years later.

    This celebratory omnibus edition includes the classic novel of the same name, a comic portrait of the lives of Cranford's genteel female inhabitants, as well as a novella and a short story. Both of these, The Moorland Cottage and The Cage at Cranford, feature in the Cranford two-part Special due to be screened on BBC television over Christmas 2009. These poignant portraits of early Victorian country village life deserve to be read and re-read.

    Something not discussed in polite society or approved by high society. A book: The Duke’s Mistress. Follow their journey and adventure as they each search for their happily-ever-after. Publisher’s Note: This steamy Victorian romance contains elements of power exchange and is intended for mature audiences.

    And no one knows this better than Phillipa Jones who must fight society's conventions along with chauvinistic ship captains and a greedy yet undeniably handsome Viscount to keep her late husband's shipping business afloat. Unfortunately, one moment of weakness and a case of mistaken identities will place her in a compromising position, which will see everything she's worked for come to ruins including her reputation. TO MY READER: This is Koko's first attempt at writing an historical erotic romance and hopefully I've allowed you to escape the doldrums of everyday life with my slice of fiction. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ever since she was a child, Koko Brown has had a love for the written word. So much so, she decided to publish her own newspaper at the tender age of nine. Turning a tidy profit from the very first issue, the publication was quickly put out of business by KoKo's grade school principal, who didn't appreciate outside competition. Undaunted, Koko has never strayed too far from her passion, whether it was writing for her college's literary magazine, bringing some liveliness to her local newspaper's obituary page, writing web page content to attract visitors to Florida's beautiful Space Coast or even trying her hand at erotic fiction. When not writing, this Florida native likes spending time with family and friends, riding her Yamaha 650 Classic, surfing the internet, traveling to exotic locales, thrift store shopping and having great conversations.

    With sharp wit and dramatic shifts of scale, these images flouted the serious conventions of photography in the 1860s and 1870s. Often made by women for albums, they reveal the educated minds and accomplished hands of their makers, taking on the new theory of evolution, addressing the changing role of photography, and challenging the strict conventions of aristocratic society. Although these photocollages may seem wonderfully odd to us now, the authors argue that they are actually perfectly in keeping with the Victorian sensibility that embraced juxtaposition and variety. This delightful book, the first to examine comprehensively the little-known phenomenon of Victorian photocollage, presents imagery that has rarely—and, in many cases, never—been displayed or reproduced. Illuminating text provides a history of Victorian photocollage albums, identifies the common motifs found in them, and demonstrates the distinctly modern character of the medium, which paved the way for the future avant-garde potential of both photography and collage.

    Louise Raw gives us a challenging new interpretation of events proving that the women themselves, not celebrity socialists like Annie Besant, began it. She provides unequivocal evidence to show that the matchwomen greatly influenced the Dock Strike of 1889, which until now was thought to be the key event of new unionism, and repositions them as the mothers of the modern labour movement. Returning to the stories of the women themselves, and by interviewing their relatives today, Raw is able to construct a new history which challenges existing accounts of the strike itself and radically alters the accepted history of the labour movement in Britain.

    She'll grasp at any bit of luck, until it becomes too good to be true.Mr. Satine is willing to offer his home, heart, and riches over to the beautiful Rosalyn the moment he lays eyes on her. His intentions seem obvious, but become less so when he shows no romantic interest in her, and pure animosity toward Orabella.Both Orabella and Satine live in their pasts, but what happens when they actually have to confront it?

    Even as the Education Acts of 1870, 1880, and 1891 extended the privilege of print literacy to greater numbers of the populace, stitching samplers continued to be a way of acculturating girls in both print literacy and what Kortsch terms dress culture. Kortsch explores nineteenth-century women's education, sewing and needlework, mainstream fashion, alternative dress movements, working-class labor in the textile industry, and forms of social activism, showing how dual literacy in dress and print cultures linked women writers with their readers. Focusing on Victorian novels written between 1870 and 1900, Kortsch examines fiction by writers such as Olive Schreiner, Ella Hepworth Dixon, Margaret Oliphant, Sarah Grand, and Gertrude Dix, with attention to influential predecessors like Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Bront�, and George Eliot. Periodicals, with their juxtaposition of journalism, fiction, and articles on dress and sewing are particularly fertile sites for exploring the close linkages between print and dress cultures. Informed by her examinations of costume collections in British and American museums, Kortsch's book broadens our view of New Woman fiction and its relationship both to dress culture and to contemporary women's fiction.

    It demonstrates that, rather than representing a largely conventional, conservative view of sexuality and gender, he presents a distinctly queer corpus, everywhere fascinated by the diversity of gender roles, the expandability of notions of the family, and the complex multiplicity of sexual desire. The book examines the long overlooked figures of bachelor fathers, martially resistant men, and male nurses. It explores Dickens's attention to a longing, not to reproduce, but to nurture, his interest in healing touch, and his articulation, over the course of his career, of homoerotic desire.Holly Furneaux places Dickens's writing in a broad literary and social context, alongside authors including Bulwer-Lytton, Tennyson, Braddon, Collins, and Whitman, to make a case for Dickens's central position in queer literary history. Examining novels, poetry, life-writing, journalism, and legal and political debates, Queer Dickens argues that this eminent Victorian can direct us to the ways in which his culture could, and did, comfortably accommodate homoeroticism and families of choice. Further, it contends that Dickens's portrayals of nurturing masculinity and his concern with touch and affect between men challenge what we have been used to thinking about Victorian ideals of maleness.Queer Dickens intervenes in current debates about the Victorians (neither so punitive nor so prudish as we once imagined) and about the methodologies of the histories of the family and of sexuality. It makes the case for a more optimistic, nurturing, and life-affirming trajectory in queer theory.

    And it is still more curious that Daniel Deronda, George Eliot’s last novel, should have been dismissed, by many of her admirers at the time and by some critics since, as something of an anomaly, an inexplicable and unfortunate turn in her life and work.Yet Eliot herself was passionately committed to that novel, having prepared herself for it by an extraordinary feat of scholarly research in five languages (including Hebrew), exploring the ancient, medieval, and modern sources of Jewish history. Three years later, to reenforce that commitment, she wrote an essay, the very last of her writing, reaffirming the heritage of the Jewish “nation” and the desirability of a Jewish state – this well before the founders of Zionism had conceived of that mission.Why did this Victorian novelist, born a Christian and an early convert to agnosticism, write a book so respectful of Judaism and so prescient about Zionism? And why at a time when there were no pogroms or persecutions to provoke her? What was the general conception of the “Jewish question,” and how did Eliot reinterpret that “question,” for her time as well as ours?Gertrude Himmelfarb, a leading Victorian scholar, has undertaken to unravel the mysteries of Daniel Deronda. And the mysteries of Eliot herself: a novelist who deliberately wrote a book she knew would bewilder many of her readers, a distinguished woman who opposed the enfranchisement of women, a moralist who flouted the most venerable of marital conventions – above all, the author of a novel that is still an inspiration or provocation to readers and critics alike.

    Long after the rest of Europe and neighboring Scotland had reformed their marriage laws, England clung to the chaotic and contradictory laws of the medieval Church, making it all too easy to enter into a marriage but virtually impossible to end an unhappy one. If England was a "paradise for wives" it could only have been through the feistiness of the women. Married women were placed in the same legal category as lunatics. While Englishmen prided themselves on their devotion to liberty, their wives were no freer than slaves. It was a husband’s jealously guarded right to beat his wife, as long as the stick was no bigger than his thumb. With a cast of hundreds, from loyal and devoted wives in troubled times to those who featured in notorious trials for adultery, from abusive husbands whose excesses were only gradually curbed by the law to the modern phenomenon of the toxic wife, acclaimed historian Maureen Waller draws on intimate letters, diaries, court documents, and advice books to trace the evolution of the English marriage. It is social history at its most revealing, astonishing, and entertaining.

    It's a story of how a diverse and competitive assortment of apothecary apprentices, surgeons who learned their trade by doing, and physicians schooled in ancient Greek medicine but lacking in any actual experience with patients, was gradually formed into a medical profession with uniform standards of education and qualification. It's a story of how medical men struggled with new diseases such as cholera and old ones known for centuries, such as tuberculosis, syphilis, and smallpox, largely in the absence of effective drugs or treatments, and so were often reduced to standing helplessly by as their patients died. It's a story of how surgeons, empowered first by anesthesia and later by antiseptic technique, vastly expanded the field of surgery--sometimes with major benefits for patients, but sometimes with disastrous results.Above all, it's a story of how gender and class ideology dominated both practitioners and patients. Women were stridently excluded from medical education and practice of any kind until the end of the century, but were hailed into the new field of nursing, which was felt to be natural to the gentler sex. Only the poor were admitted to hospitals until the last decades of the century, and while they often received compassionate care, they were also treated as cases of disease and experimented upon with freedom. Yet because medical knowledge was growing by leaps and bounds, Victorians were fascinated with this new field and wrote novels, poetry, essays, letters, and diaries, which illuminate their experience of health and disease for us. Newly developed techniques of photography, as well as improved print illustrations, help us to picture this fascinating world. This vivid history of Victorian medicine is enriched with many literary examples and visual images drawn from the period.

    As a girl she constantly occupied herself with literary experiments, and in 1849 published her first novel Passages in the Life of Mrs Margaret Maitland. This she followed up in 1851 with Caleb Field. In May 1852 she married her cousin, Frank Wilson Oliphant. He had very delicate health. For the sake of his health they moved in January 1859 to Florence, and thence to Rome, where Frank Oliphant died. His wife, left almost entirely without resources, returned to England and took up the burden of supporting her three children by her own literary activity. In the course of her long struggle with circumstances, Mrs. Oliphant produced more than 120 separate works, including novels, books of travel and description, histories and volumes of literary criticism. These works include A Beleaguered City (1880); The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences; The Open Door, and the Portrait (1881); A Little Pilgrim (1882); Old Lady Mary (1884); and Jeanne d'Arc: Her Life and Death (1896).

    Those elegies inspired by the death of his first wife Emma are some of his best, and are well represented in this new selection of his verse. Prepared by Samuel Hynes, the editor of the definitive Oxford English Texts Complete Works of Thomas Hardy, this volume includes a selection of Hardy's poetry that spans his life, verses that influenced later poets as diverse as Robert Graves and Philip Larkin, Ezra Pound and W.H. Auden. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

    It is wonderfully, clearly written and is a detailed exploration of all the major occurrences which surrounded these eventful 60 years, as well as an additional section on the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. It is essential reading for all interested in the life of Queen Victoria, one of the most influential monarchs of history, as well as the times she lived in, and the events surrounding her life. Aside from the wealth of information, what truly sets this book apart are the hundreds of photographs and illustrations directly from the royal collection that have been included. This updated edition has been optimized for kindle, and includes a detailed and active table of contents.

    In Railway Kings, Dickens is Editor of campaigning weekly The Herald, and has just appointed a new Chief Correspondent. Young Jack Marshall’s first task is to find out who is responsible for a tragic railway accident—an awkward investigation for Railway King Joseph Paxton is a shareholder in the paper and his daughter, Agnes, is on the staff. Darker Than You Think sees The Herald’s team embroiled in a series of grisly murders. Bodies are being discovered in the Thames with dreadful injuries, and Inspector Leavett wants the culprit found quickly. Jack is sent to investigate but Agnes seems more interested in her new beau, a pioneering doctor, than in following the progress of his leads. Two BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramas starring Jamie Glover as Charles Dickens.

    Many thought it doomed to failure - it became one of the 1968-69 season's biggest hits! It was the 1968-70 ABC-TV/Screen Gems series, HERE COME THE BRIDES! In 'Gangway, Lord! (The) Here Come the Brides Book, ' readers will learn how the approach series star Robert Brown took to his role changed the dramatic direction of the series. They will learn of the practicality of up-and-coming television superstar David Soul. Of the extraordinary opportunity handed to leading lady Bridget Hanley through the role of New Bedford bride 'Candy Pruitt.' Featuring profiles of the series' creators, regulars and semi-regulars, a mini-history of 1960s and '70s television, and a chapter on HCTB's extraordinary and deeply devoted fan base, 'Gangway, Lord! (The) Here Come the Brides Book' takes the reader back to the days of the series' original run, illustrating the show's popularity and impact on a week by week basis through a look at its competition, the appearances of its stars on talk shows and game shows, the number of fan magazine articles published on teen superstar Bobby Sherman and the rest of its cast. Including commentary and 'making of the episode' anecdotes from guest stars, guest writers, and guest directors, 'Gangway, Lord! (The) Here Come the Brides Book' offers very strong evidence that the 1960s and '70s was truly THE REAL GOLDEN AGE OF TELEVISION!