Alison Baxter writes about the tragedy in her own family history that inspired her first novel, A Fatal Choice. Her research uncovered a puzzling story of secrets and lies. She could have written it as non-fiction, but fiction gave her the opportunity to explore the inner lives of the women involved. I came late to […]
The ‘ordinary’ Victorian murderess
Victorian women who killed have fascinated writers for over a century. What made the ‘angel in the house’ — a popular idea in the late 1850s — behave like a devil? Especially if they seemed, well, ordinary. Lesley McDowell, author of Love and Other Poisons, wonders what an ‘ordinary’ murderess was. “[She was] an ordinary, […]
The Fascination by Essie Fox
Twin sisters Keziah and Tilly Lovell are identical in every way, except that Tilly hasn’t grown a single inch since she was five. Then at the age of 15 the girls are sold to a mysterious Italian known as ‘Captain’. Theo is an orphan, raised by his grandfather. Resenting his grandson for his daughter’s death […]
Damned Souls: an aristocratic Victorian scandal
Among the late 19th-century circle of aristocratic artists and wits known as the Souls, adulterous affairs were accepted. But when a relationship between two unmarried Souls resulted in a pregnancy, the scandal that followed threatened to destroy careers and exposed the group’s conventionality. Jane Dismore’s latest book tells their story. It was not until she […]
The Victorian theatrical world of mystery and illusion
With the closure of our theatres, it only seems fair to bring a little old-fashioned footlights-and-greasepaint magic to Historia. So, ladies and gentlemen, I present for your especial enjoyment… the effervescent, the estimable, the essential Essie Fox! There has been quite an upsurge in Victorian-era novels published over the past few years. As a writer […]
Top ten films set in the Victorian era
Kate Griffin admits that films have influenced the world of her Victorian melodramas. On the publication of the fourth book in her Kitty Peck series, she offers a viewing top ten. One Christmas towards the end of the 1970s I made a teenage stand against the tyranny of spending Boxing Day evening with my parents’ […]
The Darker Quacks – Between folklore and science
Oscar de Muriel found the Victorian clash between science and superstition an irresistible background for his Frey and McGray spooky Scottish whodunits, he tells Historia. A man sets up a box amidst a busy market, jumps on top of it cradling a boxful of tiny glass vials, and begins his chant. His new miraculous tonic […]
Historia Interviews: Kaite Welsh
Kaite Welsh is an author, critic, journalist and activist. Her excellent debut novel, The Wages of Sin, set in the dark underworld of Victorian Edinburgh, is published by Tinder Press on 1 June. Here she discusses with fellow Victorianista Anna Mazzola her love of history, feminism, mob-caps and buttered crumpets. Your protagonist, Sarah Gilchrist, is […]