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)
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.
Robin Hood’s Death
One of the reasons for the longevity of the Robin Hood legend is the fact that, in the original medieval ballads, his origins are not stated. He is simply there, in the […]