Social

An old-fashioned feature of a fusty, inegalitarian past, when did the British stop knowing their place?

Wills in early modern England tell us much more than simply who left what to whom, and should not be discarded lightly.

In Rites of Passage: Death & Mourning in Victorian Britain, Judith Flanders explores the commercialisation of grief and those who resisted the era’s conspicuous consumption.

Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sexual Relations, 1400-1750 by Noel Malcolm is an ambitious comparative study that raises plenty of questions.

Pet monkeys became a popular fashion accessory for the Victorians, found in homes across the country. But they were rarely living a life of luxury.

Early modern fairy tale or urban legend? Who was London’s pig-faced lady and where did she come from?

In the Icelandic sagas communal feasting served as cornerstone of celebration. A thousand years on, these cautionary tales still offer sage advice for the Yule festivities.

The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 1748-1789 by Robert Darnton is a sweeping account of events from the Parisian perspective, from disastrous wars to fights for religious toleration.

Confinement: The Hidden History of Maternal Bodies in Nineteenth-Century Britain by Jessica Cox looks at the engine of the Victorian population boom: motherhood.