Victorian History

A powerful new cultural history of sex written by one of the UK's most prominent historians. Sex, for the entirety of human history, has never been about reproduction. Statistically speaking, only one out of every one thousand sexual acts between a man and a woman will result in a pregnancy. And...

From 1845 to 1852, the Great Hunger, also referred to as the "Potato Famine", was a period of a lot of starvation and illness in Ireland. The period was known in Irish at the time as a "Drochshaol"—loosely translated as "the hard days", or actually "the bad life"—with the most badly affected districts in the west and south of Ireland, where the Irish language was popular. The year 1847, at times called "Black '47", was the absolute worst year of the period. Around one million people died, and over a million left the nation throughout the Great Famine.

The Victorian era was a time of great change and rapid progress. Britain was undergoing the most tremendous development. Scientific discoveries had prompted the Industrial Revolution, which made Britain the world leader in iron and steel production. Science was undergoing a revolution, enabled by the groundbreaking work of Michael Faraday, who led the Royal Institution. Great swathes of Central Africa were mapped by the explorer David Livingstone and the understanding of humankind’s place in the world was being redefined by the theories of the great naturalist Charles Darwin.

When one hears the term “Victorian”, many images come to mind. For some, the term conjures up visions of lace and gloves and delicate fans. Others think of tight corsets and even tighter morals. Others, swayed perhaps by one too many British costume dramas, envision gentle elegance and long-lost beauty. Naturally, few people think of multiple dead bodies cast about in the streets or dark bedrooms, most mutilated to a shocking degree, and yet, those tragic images played a significant role not only in late Victorian London, but ever since.

Pursuit of knowledge, beauty, and human perception through harmonious balance between intellectual development (light) and moral refinement (sweetness)

When diplomatic efforts to introduce opium to the Chinese market failed, the British Parliament approved an alternative: war. There were two wars: one from 1839 to 1842, and another from 1856 to 1860. They are collectively known as the Opium Wars. The British, who were joined by French and supported by the Americans and Russians, clashed with Imperial China, which was ruled by the Qing dynasty.

Oscar Wilde visited America in the year 1882. Interest in the Aesthetic School, of which Wilde was the most prominent representative, had spread to the United States, and Wilde decided to undertake an American lecture tour to explain the Aesthetic movement. Towards the end of September 1883 Wilde returned to England and immediately commenced a lecturing tour. His first visit was to Wandsworth Town Hall where he presented his "Impressions of America", the text of which was published in 1906.

Si quiere descubrir la fascinante historia de la era victoriana, siga leyendo.... Cuando la reina Victoria subió al trono de Gran Bretaña e Irlanda en 1837, ya no existían los días en que el monarca tenía la autoridad suprema sobre el reino. Victoria gobernó al frente de un gobierno con el que debía conversar, debatir y, en última instancia, guiar, y era un trabajo que a veces le costaba realizar. Victoria se describiría a sí misma como una criatura emocional y culparía a su género por lo que creía que eran sus defectos como monarca.

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.