Dickensians! discussion

Are you fascinated by Victorian life? Here is where you can post about any books you have read and recommend. Also please tell us about any facts and observations, which you may find humorous or startling. This may be about London life at the time, and social conditions, or the Law.

Links to books or articles are welcome.

(Wouldn't link the way I wanted)
The History of England by Jane Austen and Charles Dickens
Two books in one
my review

Thanks Cynda. Two Histories of England is the book you mean, I think.

The combining of two books like this, with Charles Dickens's A Child's History of England (written for his children but published long after) contrasted with the juvenilia of Jane Austen (she was a mere 16) is tempting indeed! (Of course you will know that Jane Austen is a Regency author - part of the Georgian era - and not a Victorian, but then her work comprises only 20% of the book, apparently, so it's fair to include it, I think.)

Add to this the fact that the introduction is by one of our most popular historians here in England, David Starkey, and it sounds like a winner.

We will probably read A Child's History of England at some point, as a side read. If so, then I hope you will come to enjoy it a little more. At the moment we are reading Pictures from Italy, which is a very lively sort of travelogue by Charles Dickens, which you might enjoy.

Thinking of Jane Austen, there is a Victorian humorous book by the 9 year old Daisy Ashford, which I think you would appreciate. It is called The Young Visiters, or Mr. Salteena's Plan, and she wrote it in 1890. It attempts to imitate the sort of satirical social novels Jane Austen wrote.

By the way, we do have a thread dedicated to reviews, if you scroll down a bit.

Thanks Jean. I am seeing that the review thread is a better spot. . . . Yeah, I think Pictures from Italy would likely interest (and know The Young Visitors: Or Mr. Salteena's Plan will delight.) 🙂

I happened to notice this book was cheap today on Kindle, it sounds interesting. Oh sorry that is on UK Kindle, don't know about USA or elsewhere 😊
The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London by Judith Flanders
Apologies if someone else has already brought it to (y)our attention

Adrian wrote: "I happened to notice this book was cheap today on Kindle, it sounds interesting. Oh sorry that is on UK Kindle, don't know about USA or elsewhere 😊
[book:The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dicken..."

Adrian, I will be reading this book as well. I hope to read in February. If you post your review here at Dickensians, I will read it.

Thanks Adrian! It is a very interesting book, choc-a-block with information. (That was a slight criticism of mine, actually - it felt as if the author couldn't bear to leave anything out!) I reviewed it LINK HERE.

It's well worth reading, but the diagrams and illustrations are hopeless on kindle - unless you maybe have a huge screen?

@Cynda, I look forward to reading your review. I hope to be reading it early in 2021, but no idea when yet
.
@Jean, great review my friend, I confess I hadn't read it in full before. Unfortunately my Kindle is not exactly huge either, so I will suffer the same as you.

I remember I did feel a bit cheated. It could be worth getting a copy out of the library just to have a look at the diagrams - oh but your libraries may be shut, depending on which tier you're in. Sorry - and thank you :)

I just picked up How to Be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman today at the library. I've not started reading it yet, so I will have to report back. Anyone read this one yet?

It's on my to-read shelf :) So I'll be interested in your thoughts, Lori :)

This sounds like a fascinating exhibition about a Victorian feast, to be held at a country house in Buckinghamshire - although I wonder if the dates will have to change in the current situation:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2...

Judy wrote: "This sounds like a fascinating exhibition about a Victorian feast, to be held at a country house in Buckinghamshire - although I wonder if the dates will have to change in the current situation:

..."
That sounds amazing , but as you say Judy, early February given the latest lockdown rules is highly unlikely, sadly

I expect events like this will be held later, but thanks for the heads-up Judy.

On Sunday I watched a programme which I discovered purely by channel-hopping, and found it fascinating! It's the first part of a series, and you can probably still watch it on BBC iPlayer. The series is called "The Victorian Slum" LINK HERE, and is on BBC4 at 7pm. (I think it was originally on BBC2, so perhaps some have seen it already).

The first episode was set in the 1860s. In the first episode, 3 present-day families move into a tenement building in the East End of London, which has been "converted" into a Victorian slum. They have to live as if it were that time, and work together as a family all hours of the day and night for any scraps of food etc. It's an incredibly hard life, and having people like us endure it for a while conveys the reality very well. I knew some of the facts - but this was different. I was glued to the screen!

Bionic Jean wrote: "On Sunday I watched a programme which I discovered purely by channel-hopping, and found it fascinating! It's the first part of a series, and you can probably still watch it on BBC iPlayer. The seri..."

Thanks for the heads-up Jean. I have seen similar "send a family back to the past" type programs (60s and 70s - which was interesting as to me it was normal). Anyway I shall delve into the BBC iPlayer.

Bionic Jean wrote: "On Sunday I watched a programme which I discovered purely by channel-hopping, and found it fascinating! It's the first part of a series, and you can probably still watch it on BBC iPlayer. The seri..."

Jean, I think that's the program I saw a year ago or so. I was telling Lori about it. It's very interesting watching the families as they try to convert to this new way of life. I couldn't recall the name of the show. So, now Lori and I know the name. Thanks, Jean.

Anne - it's got to the States? That's great! I hoped it would have. I'm lucky to catch it this time round :)

Adrian - a few months ago we watched "Back in Time for Tea" - and that was similar - a piece of social history, some in my parents or grandparents generation, and some of which I remember. I think they did each decade in the 20th century, or similar. Perhaps that's one you have seen too? (Again we came upon it by accident!)

Bionic Jean wrote: "Anne - it's got to the States? That's great! I hoped it would have. I'm lucky to catch it this time round :)

I'm guessing it's the same one I watched. Yes, it initially aired here on PBS in 2017.

Funny how progrmames like this will not date for a very long time!

Bionic Jean wrote: "Adrian - a few months ago we watched "Back in Time for Tea" - and that was similar - a piece of social history, some in my parents or grandparents generation, and some of which I remember. I think they did each decade in the 20th century, or similar. Perhaps that's one you have seen too? (Again we came upon it by accident!) ..."

Yeah that's the one Jean, the one where they do every decade.

I haven’t seen the British ones, but we have our own version here in Australia.

That's interesting Janelle. How far back does it go?

Thanks Jean for the info on the show. Anne saw it here in the States but I have not. I'd love to if I can ever find it. Maybe Amazon since they have several PBS masterpiece collections.

I think just the 1900s, Jean

I finished reading How to Be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman about a week ago.

This is a very detailed look at Victorian life from the perspective of the servant, an aristocrat to a labourer and middle class workers. She adds so much that it's best to read in smaller chunks.

She basically starts at the very beginning of the day with waking up and morning routine, exercise, food, grooming, dressing and outlines what each type of person would have done and what their experience would have been. They were all quite different.

She talked about sickness, doctoring, the overuse of opiates, how bathing became a leisure pastime of swimming, and even ideas of sex in that time. Some interesting laws pertaining to prostitutes during that time were created. Quite interesting stuff and some of it was shocking.

It is definitely worth a read and I think most of us here in this group would learn something and enjoy it.

Yes, it's definitely on my list Lori :) You wrote a great review!

Thanks Janelle - it does sound similar. I wish we could get that one here too!

I'm really excited about the video I've just added to "Dickensians!"

Just scroll down the home page and you can play it - it's about 5 minutes long, and although it starts small at the beginning, it enlarges within a minute.

Some really clever person has take some scratchy old film of Victorian street life, cleaned it up and colourised it. It looks fantastic! All those working people we read about in Charles Dickens's novels, all the poor folk, and the occasional prosperous gentleman walking ... and the street is just so crowded!

This was filmed up North in 1901, so it's a little bit after Charles Dickens, the year Queen Victoria died.

My favourite parts are the children, who get wise to the fact that the camera is on them, and laugh at it so cheekily! Most are wearing wooden clogs, and one is posing, and looks just as I imagine the "Artful Dodger" from Oliver Twist might have done :D

Great video! Thanks for sharing.

Oh great! Thanks Katy. I'm so pleased I'm not the only one who can see it :D

Bionic Jean wrote: "I'm really excited about the video I've just added to "Dickensians!"

Just scroll down the home page and you can play it - it's about 5 minutes long, and although it starts small at the beginning, ..."

Oh my, that is amazing! It's interesting to compare this video to a Dickens film, say A Christmas Carol (the old one from the 30s). There's a lot of similarities, but the real life video seems quite grim. Very dirty, dusty, I guess sooty from coal? The children are a joy to see, hamming it up for the camera just like they do today.

Thank you for posting this!

Yes, soot from the chimneys I think. The factories belched out a lot of smoke.

I still can't get my head round the fact that this is real life at the time, and not a filmed drama, as you say Cozy_Pug. It's a piece of social history :)

So sad that many of these boys were destined to be killed in World War I.

Oh goodness yes, I'd not thought of that - those poor boys had no idea what was ahead for them. So sad

It's amazing to think that these street scenes were filmed 120 years ago. I loved watching the kids too. Thanks for sharing this video, Jean.

I wonder what they would have thought if they'd known we would be watching it from all parts of the world 120 years later on something called a computer.

Yes indeed! Even a few decades ago this would have seemed incredibly futuristic!

Wow! Wonderful to see that glimpse of Victorian life! Thanks Jean for posting. The kids especially the boys made me chuckle. I kept thinking if they could see themselves they’d love it! I was amazed at how much they looked like little men. Everyone seemed to be wearing the same thing too. Not much variety or color in the working class. A video of the prominent wealthy folks would be very different.

Did you notice two men having a fist fight? Unclear if it was staged for the camera or not.

Reminds me of the wonderful film Peter Jackson made from WWI footage called "They Shall Not Grow Old". Parts of it were colorized and it was redone to make the motions smoother. That would have been the time when these children grew up.

Some people looked sooty but there seemed to be at least one actual black man in the group.

Robin, yes the men fist fighting did seem to be hamming it up a bit!

I've always noticed how drab the colors of the clothing that lower classes wore during the early 20th century. Even though this is colorized, it is accurate enough. I've seen a video shot in San Francisco during the first decade and it was very similar to this except for the sooty air and faces. It really is easy to imagine the boys in this video as characters in a Dickens novel like Oliver Twist come to life.

Dyes were expensive - and washing clothes by hand was hard work with all the other work the working classes had to do! I guess that explains the grimy, sooty clothes.

Robin - I was actually surprised to see only one black man, as in Victorian times there were many more black people in London than is popularly thought. Then I remembered that this is not London, but a northern mill town - perhaps Manchester at a guess.

Yea. In March we will be reading The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London. This book has long been on my tbr, a book I was planning to read this year, this year of my reading Dickens.

I have been wanting to read The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London since reading both Bleak House and The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World after which I was both horrified and intrigued. Industralization and population booms often cause various public hygiene problems. Jean suggested I read The Victorian City to learn more. I have carved out some reading time now. All ready to have a go.

Excellent Cynda! The book you mention will be our side read to Dombey and Son, which we have begun today. As you perhaps know, our main group reads are slow, at one chapter a day, but a side read begins later, overlaps, and is a less structured read altogether.

When we are closer to the time, I'll announce a start date (and you'll get the official GR notification a week before). It's on the shelf already, just to give everyone time to organise a copy if they wish.

This sounds good. I see that it’s a bit of a long book so I will likely take some time with it, but I have enjoyed my past experience with Flanders. I will request from the library closer to the time.

There is an article in "The Atlantic" about how proper ventilation played a major role in the design of Victorian hospitals and buildings. How our modern hermetically sealed buildings are horribly designed to prevent the spread of airborne diseases, the latest example being COVID-19. Florence Nightingale is prominent in the article.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...

This is a fascinating article. Thank you Michael :)

This UK Daily Mail has an article of photochrom images of Late Victorian London. I love the Omnibuses and paddle steam ships. Cheapside has really been blighted by soulless modern architecture.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...

Michael, interesting about the importance of ventilation. I live in a new apartment building and can’t open the windows myself. They take more upper body and/or back strength than I have. I do have a blower setting for outside air on my heat/ac control but most of the year that isn’t usable due to temperatures or allergies. Pollen, etc are worsening each year here due to climate change. For the first time in my life, I have no open window.

Now all of the schools in my state are working to ensure that ventilation is adequate. It’s become a national mandate now.

Michael wrote: "This UK Daily Mail has an article of photochrom images of Late Victorian London. I love the Omnibuses and paddle steam ships. Cheapside has really been blighted by soulless modern architecture.

ht..."

Those are wonderful! I was thinking what a shame that people had replaced so many of the old buildings but then realized many were damaged or destroyed in the war. And all the famous monuments were of course kept up. In the US, many buildings were torn down just because they were old and replaced by something ugly which didn't last (example, Penn Station in NYC).

I thought Hyde Park Corner was where people could speak on any subject, but I also thought that was somewhere inside the park. Is there a particular area of Hyde Park that was traditional for the "soapbox" speakers?

Robin P wrote: "Is there a particular area of Hyde Park that was traditional for the "soapbox" speakers?..."

You'll have seen that this question has (coincidentally!) been answered in today's posts on Dombey and Son. here it is, under "English Orators and Eccentrics" LINK HERE