LADIES SMOKING FORBIDDEN As always, accounts of 'Police News' in the popular press provide fascinating insight into the manners and ...

MESMERISING BOOK NEWS Regular readers will know my next novel is The Mesmerist's Apprentice, the second adventure for Sarah Tanner. It ...

THOSE EROTIC VICTORIANS I am fascinated to have just stumbled across one Ida Craddock on the web; a Victorian 'sexual mystic' who b...

LET'S MAKE TRACKS Victorian slang is of particular interest to this novelist ... I'm always trying to reproduce accurate language th...

THE FOOD OF THE POOR A new addition comes from All the Year Round, 1877, Learning to Cook with the Poor , a Mayhew-esque, slightly satirical...