Victorian History

On Sarah A. Chrisman's 29th birthday, her husband, Gabriel, presented her with a corset. The material and the design were breathtakingly beautiful, but her mind immediately filled with unwelcome views. Although she had been in love with the Victorian era all her life, she had specifically asked her husband not to buy her a corset - ever. She'd heard how corsets affected the female body and what they represented, and she wanted none of it.

Experience dramatic British history where brutal industrialization collides with the rise of a booming global empire. Perfect for a learning commute, this vivid deep-dive transforms dusty dates into a tense narrative of monarchs, factory workers, and colonized peoples. Grasp the grand forces of...

Examining a series of El Niño-induced droughts and the famines that they spawned around the globe in the last third of the 19th century, Mike Davis discloses the intimate, baleful relationship between imperial arrogance and natural incident that combined to produce some of the worst tragedies in human history. Late Victorian Holocausts focuses on three zones of drought and subsequent famine: India, Northern China, and Northeastern Brazil.

This story of the Elgin marbles re-creates in full detail "the greatest art theft in history." Almost 200 years after they were "purchased" from Greece, the finest and most famous marbles of antiquity still remain a burning issue. This compelling, controversial story of the Elgin marbles re-creates in full and colorful detail "the greatest art theft in history", a steamy tale of obsession, intrigue, adultery, and ruin.

Explore the British Empire's dramatic rise and the Industrial Revolution in this gripping 19th-century history. Perfect for an educational commute, this engaging narrative transports you to an era defined by fierce class divides and rapid technological change. Whether you are seeking a deep-dive...

Immerse your daily commute in sweeping British history, tracing the industrial revolution that forged our modern world. From the smoky factories of a rapidly modernizing island to the sprawling outposts of a global empire, this immersive historical narrative captures an age of profound triumph...

The Murder, Mystery, and Madness of the OED The compiling of the Oxford English Dictionary was a monumental task. It took 50 years, even with the help of numerous contributors. Among the most prolific was William Chester Minor, who sent editor James Murray, thousands of extracts. On many...

The Victorian era has dominated the popular imagination like no other period, but these myths and stories also give a very distorted view of the 19th century. The early Victorians were much stranger than we usually imagine, and their world would have felt very different from our own. It was only during the long reign of the Queen that a modern society emerged in unexpected ways.

In this tale of two writers, Nell Stevens interweaves her own life as a twenty-something graduate student with that of the English author, Elizabeth Gaskell. Although they are separated by more than 150 years, Nell finds herself drawn to the Victorian novelist by their shared experiences of...

An "enchanting" upstairs/downstairs history of the British royal court, from the Middle Ages to the reign of Queen Elizabeth II (Wall Street Journal). Monarchs: they're just like us. They entertain their friends and eat and worry about money. Henry VIII tripped over his dogs. George II threw his...

In Marriage, a History, historian and marriage expert Stephanie Coontz takes listeners from the marital intrigues of ancient Babylon to the torments of Victorian lovers to demonstrate how recent the idea of marrying for love is - and how absurd it would have seemed to most of our ancestors. It was when marriage moved into the emotional sphere in the 19th century, she argues, that it suffered as an institution just as it began to thrive as a personal relationship.

The life of one of Western art's most admired and misunderstood painters J.M.W. Turner is one of the most important figures in Western art, and his visionary work paved the way for a revolution in landscape painting. Over the course of his lifetime, Turner strove to liberate painting from an...

The true story for fans of the PBS Masterpiece series Victoria, this page-turning biography reveals the real woman behind the myth: a bold, glamorous, unbreakable queen—a Victoria for our times. Drawing on previously unpublished papers, this stunning portrait is a story of love and heartbreak...

Many Disney films adapt works from the Victorian period, which is often called the Golden Age of children's literature. Animating the Victorians: Disney's Literary History explores Disney's adaptations of Victorian texts like Alice in Wonderland, Oliver Twist, Treasure Island, Peter Pan, and the tales of Hans Christian Andersen.

An accessible guide to more than 90 of the most important and groundbreaking milestones in the history of medicine, and the people behind them. How are illnesses diagnosed? When did the first successful organ transplant take place? Why are some pandemics so deadly? This audiobook explores big...

Named one of the best books of 2019 by the Daily Mail, The Sunday Times (London), and the BBC An utterly transporting and original historical novel about an eighteenth-century experiment in personal isolation that yields unexpected--and deeply, shatteringly human--results. "The best kind of...

"Delightfully horrifying."--Popular Science One of Mental Floss's Best Books of 2018 One of Science Friday's Best Science Books of 2018 This wryly humorous collection of stories about bizarre medical treatments and cases offers a unique portrait of a bygone era in all its jaw-dropping weirdness...

A chilling historical mystery unfolds as unexplained hoof prints terrorize a snow-bound Victorian countryside. Perfect for a suspenseful winter commute or eerie late-night listening, this gripping investigation tracks an infamous 1855 mass panic step by icy step. Travel back to an era where...

Uncover the dramatic urban history of a contested colonial frontier that exploded into a booming global metropolis. Perfect for your daily commute, this immersive journey reveals the deep Indigenous roots of the Kulin nations and the complex environment violently disrupted by early settlement...

Immerse yourself in the history of medicine - a colourful story of skill, serendipity, trial and error, moments of genius, and dogged determination. From traditional Chinese medicine to today's sophisticated gene therapies and robotic surgery, A Short History of Medicine combines riveting...