Life in the Victorian Age

Journeys into the Past

by Andrew Kerr-Jarrett

Life In The Victorian Age : Andrew Kerr-Jarrett

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Education

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Eszter Molnár · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating read, highly recommended.

[Prakash Yadav · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exactly what i needed to get some context to the fascinating 1800s. I also found myself concluding that the Victorian age was not very different from the late 1900s. Unsurprisingly, I also grokked the significance of the era I am living in, how mind-boggling and different it is from premordial Jurassic to modern Victorian.
The illustrations were my favourite part. Countless mornings I found myself just staring at 200 year old pictures and illustrations of ordinary life. Its fascinating how time can make some unassuming activity, a captivating pleasure to observe a century or two later.

[gabbie gent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book! I bought this book on a whim in a local secondhand bookstore, and I have no regrets. It may have been published in the 90s, it still holds as a refreshing and fun coffee table read on the Victorian Age.

I’d like to commend how fun the layout is, making sure the readers didn’t feel fatigue when reading. This just makes me miss print media and magazines in general 🥹

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, this was an interesting book which provided a basic overview of the Victorian Era. It looks at different aspects e.g. work, education, houses, sports and games, inventions and technology, farming, etc.

However, there were two main issues with it for me. The first being that the writing was organised badly within the book. There were different textboxes throughout the pages containing little bits of information. These were good but placed in the middle of text so I’d have to read the main body and then flick back a few pages to read the text box (which was on a related but completely separate issue). Also, every now and then there was a double page spread dedicated to a case study or something. These were also good but again, I’d have to read on and then remember to go back a few pages. So I had to keep going back and forth through the whole book. And at one time the main writing ended mid-sentence but then never started up again after the textboxes!

The second issue was that I, wrongly, assumed it would be mostly based on England. However it was clearly written by an American and focused a lot on America during the 19th century rather than England.

3/5 stars.
Enjoyable read but could have been better.