Victorian England Fiction

We all know that the best way to study a foreign language is to go to a country where it's spoken, but can the same immersion method be applied to history? How do interactions with antique objects influence perceptions of the modern world?

Charlotte Pitt's sister, Emily, has been accused of murdering her wayward but wealthy husband. Now Charlotte and police inspector Thomas Pitt must breach a formidable uppercrust barrier to prove Emily's innocence. Anne Perry's Victorian mysteries are rich and suspenseful journeys into a world filled with impeccable manners and intrigue.

England, 1882. Evelyn is bored with society and its expectations. So when her beloved sister, Rose, mysteriously vanishes, she ignores her parents and travels to London to find her, accompanied by the dashing Mr. Kent. But they're not the only ones looking for Rose. The reclusive young gentleman Sebastian Braddock is also searching for her, claiming that both sisters have special healing powers. Evelyn is convinced that Sebastian must be mad, until she discovers that his strange tales of extraordinary people are true.

It was a most peculiar murder. A man's body was found in the canal - but the evidence showed that he had drowned in a bathtub. A theater critic known for his savage reviews, the victim had had a full cast of enemies. While Inspector Witherspoon scoured the theater, his housekeeper and unofficial sleuthing partner Mrs. Jeffries uncovered the critic's secret past: a real-life drama more compelling than any stage play.

With his laughing eyes and wild, rakish good looks, Lord Rannulf Bedwyn is a hard man to resist. To Judith Law, a woman in need of rescue when her stagecoach overturns, Rannulf is simply her savior, a heroic stranger she will reward with one night of reckless passion before she must become a companion to her wealthy aunt. Imagine Judith's shock when the same stranger turns out to be among England's most eligible bachelors, and when he arrives at Harewood Grange to woo her cousin.

The granddaughter of a duke and darling of the ton, Lady Georgiana's life was one glittering soiree after another...until her husband did her the grave disservice of dying. Recently returned to London after a year spent rusticating in the country, she's eager to resume her social life. One thing she doesn't plan on doing? Crossing paths with Sebastian Northcliff, the arrogant cad who stole her first kiss and broke her heart. There are whispers about the duke of Warwick. Whispers that he killed his first wife. Whispers that he is incapable of love.

When a Hungarian immigrant is dismembered near London's River Thames, Commander Monk is called to the eerie scene, where 16 candles surround the corpse. As identical murders pop up around the city, Monk confronts the unsettling options: could it be the work of a secret society? A serial madman? Or is a xenophobic Brit targeting foreigners? A local doctor who speaks Hungarian from his days on the battlefield may be able to help, but his own struggles with post-traumatic stress have left his memory in shambles.

Fourth in the series of Charlotte and Thomas Pitt mysteries, Anne Perry's Resurrection Row explores the dark undercurrents that run through the lives of the idle rich in Victorian England. After a wonderful night at the theatre, Thomas and Charlotte find themselves confronted with a corpse in the driver's seat of a cab. Even more shocking, it is the body of a peer who had been decently buried the week before.

After a nearly fatal blow to the skull, traumatized private detective Ian Cameron is found dazed and confused on a muddy riverbank in Victorian London. Among his effects: a bloodstained business card bearing the name of a master wizard and a curious pocket watch that doesn’t seem to tell time. To retrieve his lost memories, Ian demands answers from Edwina and Mary Blackwood, sister witches with a murky past. But as their secret is slowly unveiled, a dangerous mystery emerges on the darkened streets of London.

When Queen Victoria stepped onto the throne of Great Britain and Ireland in 1837, gone were the days when the monarch had supreme authority over the kingdom. Victoria ruled at the head of a government with which she was meant to converse, debate, and ultimately guide, and it was a job she sometimes struggled to perform. Victoria described herself as an emotional creature and blamed her gender for what she believed were her shortcomings as a monarch.

Eleanor Wheeler married into misery. Now widowed, marrying again is the only way to save her sister and herself from their brother's drunken temper. Mr. Bancroft offers her such an escape if she can gain his mother's approval at the family's house party. Eleanor quickly discovers that obtaining Mrs. Bancroft's blessing is near impossible. A matter only complicated further when she stumbles across a fellow guest in the middle of the night. Despite fear of scandal, Eleanor cannot resist the Marquess' easy manner, which appeals to her heart in a way Mr. Bancroft never could.

Charles Humphrey, the Earl of Lonsdale, is infamous for his seductions. With laughing, gray eyes and a halo of blond hair, he's every woman's wicked dream. Beneath that devil-may-care grin he has a painful past that has made him sure love was not for him, even as the rest of his friends, the members of the League of Rogues, settle down in wedded bliss. When he accidentally rescues a mysterious beauty with eyes as haunted as his own and shares one life-changing kiss with her, she vanishes in the night. Charles vows to find this angel who might yet save his soul.

From NYT bestselling author Gail Carriger comes a witty adventure about a young woman with rare supernatural abilities travels to India for a spot of tea and adventure and finds she's bitten off more than she can chew. When Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama ("Rue" to her friends) is bequeathed...

An unexpected economic collapse shook England in the Victorian Age. Parliament enacted new laws to tackle smuggling and the avoidance of import and export duties. Recently married Adelia and Phineas had their own home to keep in order but both remained close to their parents. And so when Adelia's father is accused of smuggling and avoiding duties. Adelia knew she had to do everything she could in order to clear her father's name.

Two bodies have been found in a park in the fashionable London neighborhood of Callander Square. While Inspector Thomas Pitt is fighting to get the square’s aristocratic residents to speak with him, his pretty, well-born wife, Charlotte, decides to do some detective work of her own. Soon she is unearthing secrets in every house on the square, while Thomas tries to discover what would drive a person to murder.

A “beautifully written” (Hilary Mantel), “fascinating” (The Washington Post) story of love, madness, sisterly devotion, and control, about the two beloved daughters of renowned 1700s English painter Thomas Gainsborough, who struggle to live up to the perfect image the world so admired in...

Inspector Thomas Pitt is asked to reopen a three-year-old murder case which occurred in London's luxurious Hanover Close. With his wellborn wife, Charlotte, to aid him in penetrating the well-known reserve of high society, the inquisitive Pitts discover a shocking and deadly secret. Millions of ardent fans relish Anne Perry's highly atmospheric mysteries, set in Victorian London.

The stunning wife’s last romantic rendezvous with a stranger left her pregnant! And despite what this could mean in their social and business circles, husband and wife are keen to continue exploring extramarital pleasures in bed. But when Emma’s long-lost friend, Mary, expresses a desire to sleep James, Emma finds herself torn. The adventurous housewife wants to continue sleeping with other men, but starts to become jealous at the thought of her husband with another woman.

Enola Holmes—international bestselling and Netflix streaming sensation—returns when the rescue of a young woman sends her into battle with her brother Sherlock against his most deadly, implacable enemy - Professor Moriarty. In February 1891, London, Enola Holmes—the much younger sister of...

The Victorians are often credited with ushering in our current era, yet the seeds of change were planted in the years before. The Regency (1811-1820) began when the profligate Prince of Wales - the future King George IV - replaced his insane father, George III, as Britain's ruler. Around the regent surged a society steeped in contrasts: evangelicalism and hedonism, elegance and brutality, exuberance and despair. The arts flourished at this time with a showcase of extraordinary writers and painters such as Jane Austen, Lord Byron, the Shelleys, John Constable, and J. M. W. Turner.