MORE DATABASES

Two useful sites recently mentioned on the Victoria list.

First, is the Victorian Plays Project
http://victorian.worc.ac.uk
"A digital archive of selected plays from T.H. Lacy's Acting Edition of Victorian Plays (1848-1873)" which allows you to read lots of fascinating stuff and a get a real feel for the sort of thing popular on the Victorian stage. A full text search isn't available but you can browse by keywords and, for instance, place names.

Second is The Nineteenth Century Serials Edition (beta),
http://www.ncse.ac.uk
which contains the full text of six journals, adding to the ever-burgeoning amount of Victorian periodicals available (in the UK, at least) to search online. They want feedback on the site, which I haven't yet had a chance to use ... so get stuck in!

THE CRAIG TELESCOPE

A favourite activity of mine is discovering - by chance - long-lost Victorian buildings, that have long since disappeared. One such, mentioned to me in passing by an email correspondent, is the Craig telescope, a gigantic device that was constructed on Wandsworth Common in the 1850s. Reminiscent of something from 'War of the Worlds', it should delight anyone fascinated by Victorian engineering or the 'steampunk' aesthetic. There's a great little site on it here and I've added most of a Times article here.

VICTORIAN ETEXTS

A new project, as much for my own benefit as anyone else ... http://www.victorianetexts.com/ ... a searchable hoard of copyright-free Victorian novels. Similar things are, I confess, available elsewhere, but I intend to grow this to a decent size, and make sure it suits my own requirements for layout and searching. Currently the 1.0 version is available online, featuring mostly the 'main texts' identified by Louis James in his The Victorian Novel - but I will be expanding this greatly in forthcoming weeks. If you find it useful, or have any comments, please email me.

THE MYSTERIES OF LONDON

At last, after a marathon effort, and with the generous assistance of Mr. Dick Collins as co-editor, I present the world with an online edition of the first series of G.W.M. Reynolds's The Mysteries of London. A classic - arguably the classic - 'penny dreadful', or 'penny blood' (the latter phrase I think more common parlance at the time), it's well worth delving into (although reading the whole thing is something of a challenge, I confess, albeit an enjoyable one). A TV producer made the trite comment a year or two ago that 'if Dickens were alive today, he'd be writing soap opera'; this is plainly falsified by reading the likes of Mysteries which, unlike Dickens, share all the clichés of the modern soap form - cliffhanger endings, seemingly endless ongoing plot lines, characters who are not what they seem, and sex and violence, and more sex (well, relatively speaking). Published weekly, the Mysteries and its contemporaries were the popular serial fiction of the day - made for the working class, outselling respectable middle class authors by the thousands. So, steep yourself in penny blood ...

OLD BAILEY ONLINE

If you missed all the press releases and newspaper articles, you might like to know that the Old Bailey Online has now loaded the contents of all trials from the Victorian Period onto its website (and a bit of extra 'contextual' stuff besides). Here's a nice one which shows what happens when you wander into side-streets with ladies of the night. Again, as always, it's the details that fascinate - who knew that mid-Victorian police stations employed "lady searchers" for more intimate inquiries into stolen goods?

40. MARY WEBSTER , stealing 1 watch, value 6l.; the goods of Thomas Maw, from his person. MR. HORRIDGE conducted the Prosecution.
THOMAS MAW . On 4th Nov. I was crossing from Cornhill to Princes-street, by the Bank, and the prisoner met me, walked by my side, and asked where I was going—I said I was going home—she asked me if I would go with her to any house—I told her I would not—I walked a little way up Coleman-street, and she proposed that I should go up a court with her on the left hand side, which I was fool enough to do, I am sorry to say—I had my left hand through her pocket hole, and she drew me closer to her, and then made a hard scream, and ran off, and I found my watch was gone—I pursued her as hard as I could—as I came out of the court I was met by a man in black, who stopped me, and asked me a question—I followed the prisoner, and saw her go into a fore court, inside some iron railings—she came out again in half a minute, and I took her into Coleman-street, and gave her in custody of a policeman.

Cross-examined by MR. COOPER. Q. How long were you with her before you went up the court? A. Not above five minutes, and not above two or three minutes in the court—she did not ask me for anything—I was to go up there for nothing—I did not take her to be a person of that description—I am married, and have a family—this is the first time I have done this—this (produced) is my watch, but the handle is off—it was fastened to this chain and to this black ribbon, which was round my neck—she did not say, "You rascal, give me a sovereign, or I will have your watch"—I told the man who stopped me of my loss—he is not here—I suppose he was an accomplice—I have never seen him since—I have not tried to look after him.

MR. HORRIDGE. Q. Did she give you time to give her any money? A. Not at all; she snatched the watch suddenly, and made a scream—when I gave her into custody, she said she had never seen me before, and did not know me at all.

FREDERICK STEPHENS (City policeman, 142). On Saturday, 4th Nov., I took the prisoner from the custody of Maw—I took her to the station—she refused to give her name and address.

Cross-examined. Q. Did not she say that she took the watch because the man did not give her some money? A. I never heard her say anything to that effect; she said that he refused to give her some drink, but nothing else—she did not say that he would neither give her drink or money, or that she held his watch till he did—she denied having the watch.

SUSAN GILL . I am searcher at Moor-lane police station. On Saturday, 4th Nov., I searched the prisoner—she resisted me—I succeeded in searching her, but did not succeed in finding anything, except 2s.—I sent for a medical man, and was present when he found a watch upon her.

THOMAS LLYOND . I am a surgeon, of No. 5, New Basinghall-street. On 4th Nov. I went to Moor-lane station to search the prisoner's person, and found this watch in her vagina.

GUILTY .* Aged 30.—Recommended to mercy by the Jury, on account of the conduct of the Prosecutor.— Confined Nine Months.

LADIES SMOKING FORBIDDEN

As always, accounts of 'Police News' in the popular press provide fascinating insight into the manners and mores of Victorian society. The limits placed on women in the period are always interesting, and it's here we find out that smoking was one area where the battle lines were drawn, as late as the 1890s (St. Pancras station, opened in 1868, contained a ladies smoking room, I believe, although some considered it scandalous). For an interesting history of society and smoking, including some nice stuff on the Victorians, see 'Giveup.ca'.

MESMERISING BOOK NEWS

Regular readers will know my next novel is The Mesmerist's Apprentice, the second adventure for Sarah Tanner. It starts with a 'horse-meat riot' and - needless to say, via a complicated series of twists and turns - leads our determined heroine into the clutches of a dubious physician, who allegedly achieves his success through the practice of mesmerism. Throw in the re-appearance of her erstwhile lover, Arthur DeSalle, now married, and she's in for a difficult time ... bet you won't guess the ending, either ...

The book is pre-order-able at Amazon and you can read the first chapter here.

No appearances planned as yet, with the exception of the Paris Book Fair, where you'll find me with my French publisher, Editions 10/18, promoting Le Jardins des Derniers Plaisirs ...

THOSE EROTIC VICTORIANS

I am fascinated to have just stumbled across one Ida Craddock on the web; a Victorian 'sexual mystic' who believed in straightforward advice on sexual matters. A sample of her wisdom:

Well, I think that the very first thing for you to bear in mind is that, inasmuch as Nature has so arranged sex that the man is always ready (as a rule) for intercourse, whereas the woman is not, it is most unwise for the man to precipitate matters by exhibiting desire for genital contact when the woman is not yet aroused. You should remember that that organ of which you are, justly, so proud, is not possessed by a woman, and that she is utterly ignorant of its functions, practically, until she has experienced sexual contact; and that it is, to her who is not desirous of such contact, something of a monstrosity. Even when a woman has already had pleasurable experience of genital contact, she requires each time to be aroused amorously, before that organ, in its state of activity, can become attractive. For a man to exhibit, to even an experienced wife, his organ ready for action when she herself is not amorously aroused, is, as a rule, not sexually attractive to her; on the contrary, it is often sexually repulsive, and at times out and out disgusting to her. Every woman of experience knows that, when she is ready, she can cause the man to become sexually active fast enough.

It is remarkable that, for all its quaint language, this still seems a case of plain-speaking, some hundred years on. I'm not sure any UK writers were quite so frank; but I'm no expert ... if anyone would like to correct me, please write in!

LET'S MAKE TRACKS

Victorian slang is of particular interest to this novelist ... I'm always trying to reproduce accurate language that isn't a simple 'Cockney' pastiche; and doesn't sound odd to modern ears either. It's actually rather difficult - especially with words now considered entirely American that are good Victorian London English ("Station-house" for "police station" is one that always comes to mind). A pleasure, then, to find a Times article citing a lecture critical of 1850s slang. Much of it is familar, but I've never come across "make tracks" as a Victorian-ism ... or the likes of "walks his chalks". Enjoy the full article here