Victorian Authors

Edith Nesbit (1858-1924) is considered the first modern writer for children and the inventor of the children’s adventure story. In The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit, award-winning biographer Eleanor Fitzsimons uncovers the little-known details of her life, introducing listeners to the Fabian Society cofounder and fabulous socialite who hosted legendary parties and had admirers by the dozen, including George Bernard Shaw. Through Nesbit’s letters and archival research, Fitzsimons reveals "E." to have been a prolific lecturer and writer on socialism.

The daughter of a respectable self-made businessman, the middle-aged Eliot was cast into social exile when she began a scandalous liaison with married writer and scientist George Henry Lewes. Only her burgeoning literary success allowed her to overcome society's disapproval and eventually take her proper place at the heart of London's literary elite. The territory of her novels encompassed the entire span of Victorian society.

In this twisty Victorian detective thriller from the author of The Darwin Affair, Inspector Charles Field hunts a serial killer with a sinister signature targeting Florence Nightingale’s nurses in Crimea and women in London. Tim Mason’s gripping new novel finds Inspector Charles Field...

Elijah Seton steps into the world in pursuit of a ghost ship and those who murdered his father. He thought he knew his enemy, and he would do anything to see them fall. But he was wrong. Elijah's world is turned upside down when he finds a rare woman that his heart demands should fly free. Beatrice Hamilton lives with wealth and ease in her gilded cage. Until a new mill worker rattles her bars and gives her a glimpse of the freedom beyond. As the two work together, centuries of hate and anger are revealed that keep them apart.

"Narrator Saskia Maarleveld keeps listeners absorbed in this romance story...Listeners will want to meet all the Penningtons after hearing Maarleveld's interpretation." — AudioFile Magazine It Happened in the Highlands is the next audiobook in the new historical Highland series, The...

Miss Kira Melbourne is anything but a proper English rose. Her exotic beauty, courtesy of her foreign mother, has marked her as an outsider, and her ghastly reputation as a woman of loose virtue has only added to that status. The victim of a devious viscount's horrible lies, Kira has the chance to redeem herself and become a member of polite society as the fiancée of a respected country clergyman. She'll finally have a place to belong...even if it's in the tepid arms of a man she doesn't love.

As an innocent girl, Madeline Sedgewick learned that nothing comes without a price - even desire. Five years later, now widowed and deeply in debt, she's certain that the stranger who bought her last husband's notes of credit will demand swift, steep repayment. But she never imagines her creditor will be Brock Taylor, her baseborn former stable-hand turned newly wealthy entrepreneur - the man who stole her virginity and her heart. She's even more stunned when he says that he'll forgive her debts only if she becomes his wife.

Making Oscar Wilde reveals the untold story of young Oscar's career in Victorian England and post-Civil War America. Set on two continents, it tracks a larger-than-life hero on an unforgettable adventure to make his name and gain international acclaim. Combining new evidence and gripping cultural history, Michele Mendelssohn dramatizes Wilde's rise, fall, and resurrection as part of a spectacular transatlantic pageant. With superb style and an instinct for storytelling, she brings to life the charming young Irishman who set out to captivate the US and Britain with his words.

As the fourth daughter of a baron, Miss Hannah Fairchild has no dreams of grandeur when it comes to marriage. Forget a duke or an earl. The shy, spinsterly wallflower would be happy with a doctor or (even better) the bookseller's son. Unfortunately, if she wants to save her family from financial ruin - and her father from debtor's prison - a duke is precisely what she needs.

From Your Heart: The Shilling Can is a story that opens in the Clerkenwell District, London, 1860. It chronicles 20-year-old, Penelope Berry, alias, Pennie, who lives in the poorest part of London. She attends the Field Lane Ragged School. Her desire is to become a schoolteacher. Industrious, Pennie studies, passes the exam, earning her certificate as Novice Teacher.

Charlotte Brontë is plunged into a perilous adventure and a passionate romance that leads her from the peaceful Yorkshire moors to the crime-infested streets of London, across the sea to the Continent, to the ports of Cornwall, the wilds of Scotland, and the palaces of Queen Victoria herself. Will Charlotte be able to stop a devious invisible villain whose schemes threaten her life, her family, and her country?

From the acclaimed biographer - the fascinating, little-known story of a Victorian-era murder that rocked literary London, leading Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, and Queen Victoria herself to wonder: Can a novel kill?

This gripping historical crime fiction novel, based on fact, is set in Bradford, England, 1888. It explores the horrific murder of Johnny Gill; a murder and mutilation so gruesome, it stuns a nation. Even hardened detectives are affected by its savagery, swiftly comparing it to the work of Jack the Ripper.

While 1858 in London may have been noteworthy for its broiling summer months and the related stench of the sewage-filled Thames River, the year is otherwise little remembered. And yet, historian Rosemary Ashton reveals in this compelling microhistory, 1858 was marked by significant, if unrecognized, turning points. For ordinary people, and also for the rich, famous, and powerful, the months from May to August turned out to be a summer of consequence.

The Victorians invented mass entertainment. As the 19th century's growing industrialized class acquired the funds and the free time to pursue leisure activities, their every whim was satisfied by entrepreneurs building new venues for popular amusement. Contrary to their reputation as dour, buttoned-up prudes, the Victorians reveled in these newly created "palaces of pleasure".

Do you want to learn more about the great author Catherine Cookson , but don’t have time to read huge, long biographies? Then let The History Journals take you on an hourly history tour of his life. Mention the name of Catherine Cookson and images of a bygone era will immediately spring to mind. This truly remarkable author created a literary landscape based on her childhood experiences in the North East of England.