Victorian

Chinese Emperors banned the importation of opium, writes M. Foster Farley, but it was smuggled into the country by East Indian traders and led to the Opium War of 1840.

Joanna Richardson describes how the volumes of the Goncourts Journal record the intelligent scene in late nineteenth-century France.

At a time when the Turkish rulers of Greece were conducting a profitable trade in ancient statues, Charles Fellows, an enlightened English tourist, rescued a precious hoard from Asia Minor. By Sarah Searight.

During the forty-one years he spent in China, writes Gerald Morgan, Thomas Francis Wade learned to understand the Chinese mind and culture without being absorbed by it.

Since the reign of James I, writes C. Leo Berry, members of the Royal House have been variously prayed for in the Services of the Church of England.

No marriage has been documented so assiduously as that of Thomas and Jane Carlyle. Ronald Pearsall describes how a famous Victorian historian was the first who attempted to unveil its secrets.

Prudence Hannay introduces Lady Granville, the younger daughter of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. She bridges the gulf between two very different social periods. Brought up among the most dashing personalities of ‘the Devonshire House set’, she died in the great age of mid-Victorian respectability.

C.V. Wedgwood assesses the impact of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, 1869-1969

George Green describes the experiences of his grandfather, a typical Liverpool docker’s life of the late nineteenth century.

Mollie Gillen describes how Queen Victoria’s father was a bibliophile as well as a military commander and a colonial governor.