VICTOBER 2025 discussion

Share your sightings of the British Empire in your Victober reading!

Ros explains her challenge in her announcement video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvMoJ...

Her description of this challenge starts around 15:50.

Things you might spot:
•Setting in another part of the Empire
•Author lived in another part of the Empire
•Characters coming from or going to another place in the Empire
•Fortunes made via the Empire
•A character serving in the British navy
•Eating, drinking, wearing or using imperial products
•Loan words from other languages across the Empire

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins starts with a description of a battle in India and the theft of thd Moonstone. It then jumps 50 years ahead to show the aftermath of that theft on a family. Maybe I'm wrong and he isn't criticizing the Empire, but there is something that strikes me as Collins giving at least a smidge of critique of the Empire in this book.

I just started reading The Moonstone, and have been jotting down the connections to India. 🙂

In the first chapter of Cranford, Gaskell describes the uses of a "magnificent family red silk umbrella" and why "we wore prints, instead of summer silks."

Lorri wrote: "In the first chapter of Cranford, Gaskell describes the uses of a "magnificent family red silk umbrella" and why "we wore prints, instead of summer silks.""

If I remember correctly, you'll have several "sightings" in Cranford--enjoy!

Ros just posted a new video expanding on Empire spotting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZhB5...

I'm reading Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. In it, George Talboys returns to England from Australia, where he has made a fortune prospecting for gold.

So it turns out both the novels I picked for Victober are filled with “empire spotting” references. Both “Felix Holt” and “Trail of the Serpent” start with characters recently returned to England from India and are filled with scenes of characters drinking coffee, taking laudanum, and playing dominos. Those are just a few. It’s amazing how many of these things you notice once you start thinking about it. I’m also planning on reading the J. Sheridan LaFanu short story “Green Tea” so there you go.

Some more Empire sightings:

•Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1847): Mr Rochester's first wife was from Jamaica where he met her. Later St. John Rivers teaches Jane Hindustanee in hopes that she will marry him & go to India with him as a missionary.
•A Memoir of Jane Austen by James Austen-Leigh (1870): Austen-Leigh mentions Austen's brothers in the Navy
•Red Pottage by Mary Cholmondeley (1899): Dick Vernon is a cousin of Hester, one of the main female characters. He returns from Australia, where he has been a successful wine merchant. Also at the end of the book, Hester & her good friend Rachel are traveling in India and plan to visit both Australia and New Zealand

A summary of my Empire spotting:

• Hester the Crystal Palace, Chinese lanterns, tea, textiles
• Cranford teas, textiles, and India climate, military, and magic
• “The Last Generation in England” tea customs
• “My French Master” specific troubles with France 1789-1815, Malta

Currently reading: Framley Parsonage

o Crimean War 1854-6 reference
o Native Americans: tomahawk, “wild Indian war-dance, with nothing on but my paint” (Ch 17), dealt with the natives by extermination
o Australia: dealt with by sending felons
o India 1857 mutiny, fall of East India Co rule and 1858 direct British rule
o South Sea Islands: raising funds for Missions to bestow civilization and education to ennoble the natives in return for spices, fruits, pearls, and corals