The Victorians hated the ever-increasing price of rail travel just as much as we do today. In this ballad from “Punch”, Robin Hood is a ‘robbing’ Rail company boss.
“The Railway Robin Hood” (1868)
What is a book?
Do we read ‘books,’ or do we read texts? What is a book?
The Downfall of Robert, Earle of Huntington (1598) & The Death of Robert, Earle of Huntingdon (1601) by Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle.
Robin Hood first became an Earl in the 16th century; two relatively unknown plays had a dramatic effect upon later interpretations of the legend.
Penny Dreadful Illustrations: Edward the Black Prince (1854)
Pierce Egan the Younger (1814-1880) was like the George R. R. Martin of his day. He loved the medieval period,
Criminality in Dickens’ Oliver Twist (1838)
The 19th-century criminal was an altogether different species of villain compared to the romantic highwayman a century previously.
Eugene Sue’s “The Mysteries of Paris” (1843)
Eugene Sue’s “The Mysteries of Paris” marked the emergence of a new genre: the urban gothic.
Waverley Novel Illustrations: The Antiquary (1816)
The Waverley Novels were a series of novels written by the great Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). Amongst this series of novels were many which people today might recognise: Waverley (1814), The Antiquary (1816), Rob Roy (1817), Ivanhoe (1819), and Woodstock (1826) to name but a few.
Highwaymen as Heroes and Social Critics: “Paul Clifford” (1830) by Edward Bulwer Lytton
By the 1830s, the figure of the highwayman had almost vanished from Britain’s roads, but in a series of novels during the 1830s they were romanticised, and some authors adapted their stories to critique early Victorian society.
“Bad” Prince John? Representations of the Prince in the Robin Hood Legend, c.1600-c.1800
Prince John is now one of the stock villains of movie and television adaptations of the Robin Hood legend, but this wasn’t always the case…
The Public School Ethos and Late Victorian Children’s Literature
The writers of biographical and fictional works in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries sought to instil these values into young people’s minds. These were the values of what is known as the public school ethos. This post shall examine the ways in which the values of the public school ethos were imparted to readers within such literature.
Robin Hood Staffordshire Figurine
During the nineteenth century, various authors such as John Keats, Sir Walter Scott, and Thomas Love Peacock transformed Robin Hood into a morally safe figure; a respectable outlaw hero with whom the Victorian middle classes could identify. It was not purely in literary texts that Robin Hood’s respectable status was exhibited, however, but also in material culture.
Waverley Novel Illustrations: “Ivanhoe” (1819)
The Waverley Novels were a series of novels written by the great Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). Amongst this series of novels were many which people today might recognise: Waverley (1814), The Antiquary (1816), Rob Roy (1817), Ivanhoe (1819), and Woodstock (1826) to name but a few.
Waverley Novel Illustrations: Woodstock (1826)
The Waverley Novels were a series of novels written by the great Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). Amongst this series of novels were many which people today might recognise: Waverley (1814), The Antiquary (1816), Rob Roy (1817), Ivanhoe (1819), to name but a few.
Kew Gardens’ Imperial Connections
The Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew were founded by Princess Augusta (1713-1772) in the 1760s. In 1838 a Royal Commission was set up to inquire into the future of the gardens. The Commission concluded that, after years of official neglect, ‘the gardens should either be put on a professional footing or be closed’.
The New Newgate Calendar
In the penny dreadful version of The New Newgate Calendar, scenes of the most sensational and sexual type were included for publication – torture scenes, nudity, and flagellation – and sparked a moral panic amongst middle-class press commentators.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street | Stephen Basdeo
This post has been adapted from a chapter in my MA Thesis which was completed under the supervision of Dr. Heather Shore. The tale of Sweeney Todd, the ‘demon barber,’ (originally entitled […]
Organised Crime in “The Mysteries of London” (1844)
The Mysteries of London was a long-running penny dreadful serial which ran between 1844 and 1846 and was the biggest selling novel of the Victorian era. Read the ebook here. A version […]
The Rise and Fall of Highwaymen in Print
In 1751 the novelist and Magistrate of Westminster, Henry Fielding (1707-1754) published An Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers. ‘The great Increase of Robberies within these few years,’ […]
Robin Hood and the Babes in the Wood
The folktale of “The Two Children in the Wood” has always been popular with audiences, in spite of its grim content, depicting as it does the death of two children. However, the legend became incorporated into the Robin Hood tradition in the nineteenth century, This post discusses why two very different legends came to be associated.
Robin Hood in Romantic Period Poetry
Romanticism was a cultural and intellectual movement spearheaded by poets, artists, writers, sculptors and musicians. Whereas in the eighteenth century men such as Joseph Addison (1672-1719) complained that rural people and provincial […]
“Launched into Eternity”: Public Hangings and Last Dying Speeches in 18th-Century England
During the 18th century crime was the talk of the town in England. In 1751, the crime rate had reached such hellish proportions that the Magistrate of Westminster, Henry Fielding (the author […]
“Game of Thrones” in Historical Literary Context
This post examines the debt that George R.R. Martin owes to one of the nineteenth century’s foremost novelists, Sir Walter Scott.