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A friend of mine asked for my help on a project that required me to dust of my knowledge of Victorian history and being English in general. So I decided to do a quick tour of the local book shops and pick up some refresher books on Victorian history.
The one I read first was called Inventing the Victorians by Matthew Sweet. Matthew Sweet is a journalist and not a historian and that comes through in several ways in his work, first he is a more interesting writer than a lot of history writers, not such a stodgy style. But on the downside he has the tendency to link lots of things to how they are today, he also tends to be much more of a biographer than I really like. Still for anyone interested in the Victorian age I'd really recommend this book. He takes a look at what he considers to be the fallacy of Victorian England and tries to correct peoples impressions of the Victorians instead of being stuffy and boring making them seem more colorful and human.
The first couple chapters are a little dull, talking about "sensation seekers", the invention of movies and advertising. It's like he's slowly trying to bring people around to his ideas. However it is on the more controversial chapters that Sweet really shines. The chapter on Opium use was be far the best thing in the book. He looked at the literary references to Opium dens in London and traced them back to only two in one courtyard. After debunking the myth of Victorian Opium dens he then went on to portray a culture where Opium use was still high, where it could be easily obtained from the chemists, and was consumed legally and frequently.
Other interesting chapters that he wrote about were tackling such issues as freak shows, pedophilia, pornography, and sexuality. His dealings with sexuality were a little disappointing though he did have some interesting things to say about Oscar Wilde. The chapter on freaks was interesting. His argument was that the freaks were celebrated for their deformities and in some ways it was much healthier than say, Jerry Springer. But he pointed out that they were some the highest paid entertainers of the time and often were able to retire very comfortably.
One thing that Sweet did repeatedly and that seemed a little strange to me was to complain almost unendingly about the ideas of Virginia Woolfe and the "Bloomsbury set". His argument seemed to be that moderns were responsible for creating the idea of the stuffy Victorian and took them as his particular scapegoats. Conversly he seemed to have an unquestioning admiration for Wilkie Collins who got mentioned a tremendous ammount.
Despite it's short comings it was interesting, insightful and an entertaining read. Not really great history, but a lot of fun.
The one I read first was called Inventing the Victorians by Matthew Sweet. Matthew Sweet is a journalist and not a historian and that comes through in several ways in his work, first he is a more interesting writer than a lot of history writers, not such a stodgy style. But on the downside he has the tendency to link lots of things to how they are today, he also tends to be much more of a biographer than I really like. Still for anyone interested in the Victorian age I'd really recommend this book. He takes a look at what he considers to be the fallacy of Victorian England and tries to correct peoples impressions of the Victorians instead of being stuffy and boring making them seem more colorful and human.
The first couple chapters are a little dull, talking about "sensation seekers", the invention of movies and advertising. It's like he's slowly trying to bring people around to his ideas. However it is on the more controversial chapters that Sweet really shines. The chapter on Opium use was be far the best thing in the book. He looked at the literary references to Opium dens in London and traced them back to only two in one courtyard. After debunking the myth of Victorian Opium dens he then went on to portray a culture where Opium use was still high, where it could be easily obtained from the chemists, and was consumed legally and frequently.
Other interesting chapters that he wrote about were tackling such issues as freak shows, pedophilia, pornography, and sexuality. His dealings with sexuality were a little disappointing though he did have some interesting things to say about Oscar Wilde. The chapter on freaks was interesting. His argument was that the freaks were celebrated for their deformities and in some ways it was much healthier than say, Jerry Springer. But he pointed out that they were some the highest paid entertainers of the time and often were able to retire very comfortably.
One thing that Sweet did repeatedly and that seemed a little strange to me was to complain almost unendingly about the ideas of Virginia Woolfe and the "Bloomsbury set". His argument seemed to be that moderns were responsible for creating the idea of the stuffy Victorian and took them as his particular scapegoats. Conversly he seemed to have an unquestioning admiration for Wilkie Collins who got mentioned a tremendous ammount.
Despite it's short comings it was interesting, insightful and an entertaining read. Not really great history, but a lot of fun.
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