Victorian

As convicts celebrated Queen Victoria’s birthday on remote Norfolk Island, debates raged over the purpose of punishment and the merits of Alexander Maconochie’s project of moral reform.

The remarkable fall of absinthe: from 19th-century ‘Green Fairy’ to scourge of society.

The real female Victorian detectives were every bit as bold as their fictional counterparts – and far more prevalent than we might assume.

British agents of empire saw their actions in India through the texts of their classical educations. They looked for Alexander, cast themselves as Aeneas and hoped to emulate Augustus.

November 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the first passenger trains between London and Paris. What does the history of the Channel Tunnel tell us about Britain’s relationship with its neighbours?

Misfit, Old West villain or tragic hero of the O.K. Corral: who was the real Doc Holliday?

The acute housing crisis of mid-Victorian Britain generated stormy opinions about the nature of state intervention and the need for ‘wholesome despotism’.

On 1 October 1868 King Mongkut – who reigned as Rama IV – passed away having trod a delicate course to keep Thailand free of European empires.

In listening to the war’s loudest voices, Crimean Quagmire: Tolstoy, Russell and the Birth of Modern Warfare by Gregory Carleton drowns out the diversity of opinion.

In 1874 a choir of African American singers concluded a successful tour of Britain, singing songs that confronted American racism. Victorian audiences had never heard music like it.