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Tag: 1800s

New York in the Nineteenth Century: Illustrations from the life of George McWatters’s “Knots Untied” (1871)

By Dr Stephen Basdeo on 14 May 2023

At a time when Henry Mayhew ventured like an explorer into the ‘darkest’ parts of London to publish London Labour and the London Poor (1851), social investigators such as Jacob A. Riis and Helen Campbell did the same for New York city. And just as French policemen such as Vidocqu published their recollections of their time in the police—a book which inspired the characters of Jean Valjean and Javert in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables—so too did one Scottish-American detective, named George McWatters, publish his memoir of policing.

A Victorian “Commonplace Book” | Stephen Basdeo

By Dr Stephen Basdeo on 11 Jul 2020 • ( 1 Comment )

I recently got hold of a “Commonplace Book” which dates from 1859. Commonplace books have been a feature of home life since at least the 1600s. Most often women—though not exclusively women—would compile various poems, drawings, or copy out “advice columns” from books and newspapers into these books for keeping later on.

Playing Robin Hood in the Victorian Nursery

By Dr Stephen Basdeo on 21 Jun 2020

It would have fallen to the lot of a poorly paid Victorian governess to practice playing Robin Hood with children in the nursery.

Mike Leigh’s “Peterloo” (2018)

By Dr Stephen Basdeo on 18 Nov 2018 • ( 12 Comments )

Mike Leigh has produced a visually impressive movie, but the characters are a bit flat.

Passo di Lupo: An Italian Bandit

By Dr Stephen Basdeo on 12 Nov 2017 • ( 6 Comments )

Contrary to stories of Robin Hood, an outlaw’s life was not a merry one: in the 1820s, banditry in Italy was rife; at this time, a young travel writer named Charles Macfarlane was touring the country and managed to obtain a rare interview with one of these brigands.

E. L. Blanchard’s “The Mysteries of London” (1849-50)

By Dr Stephen Basdeo on 16 Dec 2016 • ( 2 Comments )

After G W M Reynolds and Thomas Miller decided to stop writing Victorian crime novel “The Mysteries of London”, E. L. Blanchard took up the narrative with a brand new story with original characters.

Pernicious Trash? “The Prince of Archers, or, The Boyhood Days of Robin Hood”(1883)

By Dr Stephen Basdeo on 16 Oct 2016 • ( 3 Comments )

In the late-Victorian period The Edinburgh Review wrote that ‘There is now before us such a veritable mountain of pernicious trash, mostly in paper covers, and “Price One Penny”; so-called novelettes, tales, stories of adventure, mystery and crime; pictures of school life hideously unlike reality; exploits of robbers, cut-throats, prostitutes, and rogues, that, but for its actual presence, it would seem incredible’.

The Critical Reception of Mrs. Brown of Falkland’s Robin Hood Ballads

By Dr Stephen Basdeo on 16 Sep 2016 • ( 2 Comments )

Paper Presented to the Women’s History Network Conference, Leeds Trinity University, 16-17 September 2016.

Abstract: The earliest ballads of Robin Hood such as A Gest of Robyn Hode (c.1450) and Robin Hood and the Potter (c.1450) give no clue as to the manner of Robin Hood’s birth. This was still the case when Joseph Ritson published his influential ballad anthology entitled Robin Hood: A Collection of All the Ancient Poems, Songs, and Ballads (1795). Five years after Ritson, however, Robert Jamieson published Popular Ballads and Songs, from Tradition, Manuscripts, and Scarce Editions (1806). In that collection two new never-before-seen Robin Hood ballads appeared entitled The Birth of Robin Hood and The Wedding of Robin Hood and Little John. Jamieson had transcribed the ballads from Anna Gordon Brown of Falkland, Scotland. Although twentieth-century Robin Hood critics have derided Mrs. Brown’s ballads as being of little merit compared to earlier material, Mrs. Brown enjoyed a ‘literary afterlife’ in the tradition as Goody – the old woman who recites Robin Hood stories to dinner guests – in the first ever Robin Hood novel entitled Robin Hood: A Tale of the Olden Time (1819). The proposed paper, therefore, is intended to fit into the panel ‘Women Collectors and Collected Women’.