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      • Victorina Press

        Victorina Press was created by  Consuelo Rivera-Fuentes, a Chilean-British writer and academic. We are therefore rooted strongly in Chilean and British cultures. Our mission is to publish inspirational, quality books in the spirit of bibliodiversity, a concept developed by a group of Chilean independent publishers — Editores independientes de Chile. It encourages the celebration of a variety of voices from all over the world and prevents our publishing world from being a monolithic culture. Everyone has a story to tell. We want to be the ones to tell it. Consuelo’s Latin American roots play a huge role in our publishing today, with many of our books being translated into Spanish as stand alone or bilingual publications. Publishing everything from hard-hitting, inspirational memoirs, thrilling YA dystopias, gripping historical fiction, fun early learning, colourful, exciting children's books, literature for the classic shelf, and poetry to entice you, there is one book for every genre!

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      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2020

        Victorian literary culture and ancient Egypt

        by Eleanor Dobson

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        June 2017

        Victorian demons

        Medicine, masculinity, and the Gothic at the fin-de-siècle

        by Andrew Smith

        Victorian demons provides the first extensive exploration of largely middle-class masculinities in crisis at the fin de siècle. It analyses how ostensibly controlling models of masculinity became demonised in a variety of literary and medical contexts, revealing the period to be much more ideologically complex than has hitherto been understood, and makes a significant contribution to Gothic scholarship. Andrew Smith demonstrates how a Gothic language of monstrosity, drawn from narratives such as 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' and 'Dracula', increasingly influenced a range of medical and cultural contexts, destabilising these apparently dominant masculine scripts. He provides a coherent analysis of a range of examples relating to masculinity drawn from literary, medical, legal and sociological contexts, including Joseph Merrick ('The Elephant Man'), the Whitechapel murders of 1888, Sherlock Holmes's London, the writings and trials of Oscar Wilde, theories of degeneration and medical textbooks on syphilis.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        August 2007

        The public culture of the Victorian middle class

        Ritual and authority in the English industrial city 1840–1914

        by Simon Gunn

        The public culture of the Victorian middle class looks at the creation of a distinctive 'high' culture in the industrial cities of Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester in the mid-nineteenth century and its incipient decline from the 1880s. The history of urban bourgeois culture has been relatively unexplored and under-theorised compared to popular culture. This volume therefore represents a significant contribution both to the study of middle-class cultural forms and to an understanding of the relationship between culture and power. In particular, it argues for the importance of ritualised modes of social behaviour in understanding the construction of authority in the nineteenth-century city. As well as many original arguments, the book provides a clear and useful overview of the public cultures of Victorian 'respectability'. The book will be of interest to scholars and students in the areas of social history, cultural history, urban history, cultural studies, urban studies and the sociology of culture. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        March 2021

        The Victorian aquarium

        by Silvia Granata, Andrew Smith

      • Trusted Partner
        Science & Mathematics
        November 2017

        Henry Dresser and Victorian ornithology

        by Henry A. McGhie

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2023

        Politics, performance and popular culture

        Theatre and society in nineteenth-century Britain

        by Peter Yeandle, Katherine Newey, Jeffrey Richards

        This collection brings together studies of popular performance and politics across the nineteenth century, offering a fresh perspective from an archivally grounded research base. It works with the concept that politics is performative and performance is political. The book is organised into three parts in dialogue regarding specific approaches to popular performance and politics. Part I offers a series of conceptual studies using popular culture as an analytical category for social and political history. Part II explores the ways that performance represents and constructs contemporary ideologies of race, nation and empire. Part III investigates the performance techniques of specific politicians - including Robert Peel, Keir Hardie and Henry Hyndman - and analyses the performative elements of collective movements.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        January 2021

        Victorian touring actresses

        Crossing boundaries and negotiating the cultural landscape

        by Janice Norwood

        Victorian touring actresses brings new attention to women's experience of working in nineteenth-century theatre by focusing on a diverse group of largely forgotten 'mid-tier' performers, rather than the usual celebrity figures. It examines how actresses responded to changing political, economic and social circumstances and how the women were themselves agents of change. Their histories reveal dynamic patterns of activity within the theatrical industry and expose its relationship to wider Victorian culture. With an innovative organisation mimicking the stages of an actress's life and career, the volume draws on new archival research and plentiful illustrations to examine the challenges and opportunities facing the women as they toured both within the UK and further afield in North America and Australasia. It will appeal to students and researchers in theatre and performance history, Victorian studies, gender studies and transatlantic studies.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        June 2009

        Popular Victorian women writers

        by Kay Boardman, Shirley Jones

        Popular Victorian women writers considers a diverse group of women writers within the Victorian literary marketplace. It looks at authors such as Ellen Wood, Mary Braddon, Rhoda Broughton and Charlotte Yonge as well as less well-known writers including Jessie Fothergill and Eliza Meteyard. Each essay sets the individual author within her biographical and literary context and provides refreshing insights into their work. Together they bring the work of largely unknown authors and new perspectives on known authors to critical and public attention. Accessible and informative, the book is ideal for students of Victorian literature and culture as well as tutors and scholars of the period. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        April 2001

        Victorian women's magazines

        An anthology

        by Margaret Beetham, Kay Boardman

        This anthology makes available to students and general readers the rich variety of Victorian magazines for women. The extracts range from fashion magazines to feminist journals, from serious works for Christian mothers to tales of romance and passion for 'sweethearts'. Focusing on the historical development of the British women's magazine, this extensively illustrated work gives access to texts which few readers ever see. The first main section describes and illustrates eight kinds of magazine for women. Though they have common features, the differences between the drawing room journal of the 1830s and 1840s and the cheap domestic magazines of the 1890s are clearly demonstrated. The second section focuses on those elements which made up the magazine's typical mix of ingredients, including fiction, the fashion plate, poetry, political journalism, advice columns and reader's letters. The last section is the most comprehensive listing of British Victorian women's magazines which currently exists. This is a work of scholarship but one which will appeal to students of Cultural, Historical, Literary and Women's Studies, as well as to the general interested reader. Like the magazines it represents, it offers its readers both entertainment and instruction. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        March 2004

        Victorian demons

        Medicine, masculinity, and the Gothic at the fin-de-siècle

        by Andrew W. M. Smith

        Victorian demons provides the first extensive exploration of largely middle-class masculinities in crisis at the fin de siècle. It analyses how ostensibly controlling models of masculinity became demonised in a variety of literary and medical contexts, revealing the period to be much more ideologically complex than has hitherto been understood, and makes a significant contribution to Gothic scholarship. Andrew Smith demonstrates how a Gothic language of monstrosity, drawn from narratives such as 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' and 'Dracula', increasingly influenced a range of medical and cultural contexts, destabilising these apparently dominant masculine scripts. He provides a coherent analysis of a range of examples relating to masculinity drawn from literary, medical, legal and sociological contexts, including Joseph Merrick ('The Elephant Man'), the Whitechapel murders of 1888, Sherlock Holmes's London, the writings and trials of Oscar Wilde, theories of degeneration and medical textbooks on syphilis. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Medicine
        June 2012

        Poison, detection and the Victorian imagination

        by Ian Burney, Bertrand Taithe, Roger Cooter, Carolyn Steedman

        This fascinating book looks at the phenomenon of murder and poisoning in the nineteenth century. Focusing on the case of William Palmer, a medical doctor who in 1856 was convicted of murder by poisoning, it examines how his case baffled toxicologists, doctors, detectives and judges. The investigation commences with an overview of the practice of toxicology in the Victorian era, and goes on to explore the demands imposed by legal testimony on scientific work to convict criminals. In addressing Palmer's trial, Burney focuses on the testimony of Alfred Swaine Taylor, a leading expert on poisons, and integrates the medical, legal and literary evidence to make sense of the trial itself and the sinister place of poison in wider Victorian society. Ian Burney has produced an exemplary work of cultural history, mixing a keen understanding of the contemporary social and cultural landscape with the scientific and medical history of the period. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2018

        The Victorian soldier in Africa

        by Edward Spiers, Andrew Thompson, John M. MacKenzie

        The Victorian soldier in Africa re-examines the campaign experience of British soldiers in Africa during the period, 1874-1902 - the zenith of the Victorian imperial expansion - and does so from the perspective of the regimental soldier. The book utilises an unprecedented number of letters and diaries, written by regimental officers and other ranks, to allow soldiers to speak for themselves about their experience of colonial warfare. The sources demonstrate the adaptability of the British army in fighting in different climates, over demanding terrain and against a diverse array of enemies. They also uncover soldiers' responses to army reforms of the era as well as the response to the introduction of new technologies of war. Moreover, the book provides commentary on soldiers' views of commanding officers and politicians alongside assessment of war correspondents, colonial auxiliaries and African natives in their roles as bearers, allies and enemies. This book reveals new insights on imperial and racial attitudes within the army, on relations between soldiers and the media and the production of information and knowledge from frontline to homefront. It will make fascinating reading for students, academics and enthusiasts in imperial history, Victorian studies, military history and colonial warfare.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2017

        Stained glass and the Victorian Gothic revival

        by Christopher Breward, Jim Cheshire, Bill Sherman

        Stained glass reached the height of its popularity in the Victorian period. But how did it become so popular and who was involved in this remarkable revival? The enthusiasm for these often exquisite pieces of artwork spread from specialist groups of antiquarians and architects to a much wider section of the Victorian public. By looking at stained glass from the perspective of both glass-painter and patron, and by considering how stained glass was priced, bought and sold, this enlightening study traces the emergence of the market for stained glass in Victorian England. Thus it contains new insights into the Gothic Revival and the relationship between architecture and the decorative arts. Beautifully illustrated with colour plates and black and white illustrations, this book will be valuable to those interested in stained glass and the wider world of Victorian art.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2025

        Living with lodgers

        Household economy and social relations in working-class Victorian England

        by Vicky Holmes

        For the Victorian working class, lodging in someone else's home was commonplace. Yet, despite their prevalence, lodgers and their householders have received little scholarly attention. Drawing on hundreds of coroners' inquests reported in the Victorian press, Living with lodgers traverses many domestic dwelling lodgings in England at this time, providing an extraordinary, intimate portrayal of the lives of the inhabitants therein.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2024

        Out of his mind

        Masculinity and mental illness in Victorian Britain

        by Amy Milne-Smith

        Out of His Mind interrogates how Victorians made sense of the madman as both a social reality and a cultural representation. Even at the height of enthusiasm for the curative powers of nineteenth-century psychiatry, to be certified as a lunatic meant a loss of one's freedom and in many ways one's identify. Because men had the most power and authority in Victorian Britain, this also meant they had the most to lose. The madman was often a marginal figure, confined in private homes, hospitals, and asylums. Yet as a cultural phenomenon he loomed large, tapping into broader social anxieties about respectability, masculine self-control, and fears of degeneration. Using a wealth of case notes, press accounts, literature, medical and government reports, this text provides a rich window into public understandings and personal experiences of men's insanity.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        Travellers in Africa

        British travelogues, 1850-1900

        by Timothy Youngs

        Works of travel have been the subject of increasingly sophisticated studies in recent years. This book undermines the conviction with which nineteenth-century British writers talked about darkest Africa. It places the works of travel within the rapidly developing dynamic of Victorian imperialism. Images of Abyssinia and the means of communicating those images changed in response to social developments in Britain. As bourgeois values became increasingly important in the nineteenth century and technology advanced, the distance between the consumer and the product were justified by the scorn of African ways of eating. The book argues that the ambiguities and ambivalence of the travellers are revealed in their relation to a range of objects and commodities mentioned in narratives. For instance, beads occupy the dual role of currency and commodity. The book deals with Henry Morton Stanley's expedition to relieve Emin Pasha, and attempts to prove that racial representations are in large part determined by the cultural conditions of the traveller's society. By looking at Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, it argues that the text is best read as what it purports to be: a kind of travel narrative. Only when it is seen as such and is regarded in the context of the fin de siecle can one begin to appreciate both the extent and the limitations of Conrad's innovativeness.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        August 2023

        Spectacles and the Victorians

        Measuring, defining and shaping visual capacity

        by Gemma Almond-Brown

        This is the first full-length study of spectacles in the Victorian period. It examines how the Victorians shaped our understanding of functional visual capacity and the concept of 20:20 vision. Demonstrating how this unique assistive device can connect the histories of medicine, technology and disability, it charts how technology has influenced our understanding of sensory perception, both through the diagnostic methods used to measure visual impairment and the utility of spectacles to ameliorate its effects. Taking a material culture approach, the book assesses how the design of spectacles thwarted ophthalmologists' attempts to medicalise their distribution and use, as well as creating a mainstream marketable device on the high street.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        October 2020

        Christmas in nineteenth-century England

        by Neil Armstrong

        Whether for reasons of family, food, shopping or religion, it's hard to imagine a British winter without Christmas, or to think of a more traditional national festival. But how and when did Christmas cards, pantomimes and advertising become part of that tradition? This book looks at how people in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries experienced Christmas and how today's priorities and rituals began and endured. It explores the origins of our deeply held notions around Christmas traditions and demonstrates how those ideas were in fact shaped by the fast-paced modernisation of English life. A fascinating account of the development of many things we now take for granted, the book touches on the history of childhood and the family, philanthropy and work, and the beginnings of consumerism that shaped the Christmas we know today.

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