Victorian

In the 1890s, writes J.V. Woolford, the colony of Rhodesia was a centre of conflict between Matabele warriors and the Mashona in which the British became involved on the Mashona side.

‘Give me truth: cheat me by no illusion’ demanded this intrepid American enthusiast, who, during her early middle age, landed in Europe for the first time. There, writes Joyce Clark Follet, she found love, adventure, hardship and the revolutionary cause she needed.

Uniquely of engineers, the reputation of Brunel lives on, commemorated by a university, dockyards, steamships, and countless other works of his discipline. But what, asks Walter Minchinton, were his achievements?

C. Chenevix Trench describes how, assigned to the Sudan in the time of the ‘Mahdi’, Colonel Stewart led an enterprising officer’s life in Asia and Africa.

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.

The origins of soccer can be found among the people, not the privileged who sought to define it in the 19th century.