Monthly Archives: June 2019

I like books. Always have, and always will. And what I particularly like reading about is history, especially late antiquity and early medieval, plus a fascination with the Victorian era. And what I’ve learned about these fascinations I’ve learned by … Continue reading →

Punch to the rescue: This rather charming cartoon from the 3 August 1867 edition of Punch (see http://www.victorianweb.org/periodicals/punch/seaside/15.html for attribution etc) clearly shows that most of the young women depicted are wearing a simple shift. Which makes perfect sense – … Continue reading →

I’ve been reading a book – Three Men and a Bradshaw – which is an edited set of Victorian travel journals by John Freeman, a London clerk. John Freeman’s journals date from the 1870’s and are roughly contemporary with those … Continue reading →

A couple of years ago, I became fascinated by the Madeleine Smith case – not by the story itself, involving as it did sex and murder among the middle classes of 1850’s Glasgow, but how it was reported world wide. … Continue reading →