It’s not every book that can boast to allow the reader a sneaky peak info what went on in Queen Victoria’s own wedding night, but then, The Victorian Guide to Sex by Fern Riddell is a surprising book indeed. It turns many of the commonly held perceptions of the Victorians attitudes towards sex on their heads, and has a unique …
Read More »Rebecca Rideal Reviews ‘Fred – The Collected Letters and Speeches’ by Dr John W. Hawkins
If Louis Blake Duff is to be believed, Colonel Frederick Gustavus Burnaby ‘missed by a hair’s breadth getting into the main channels of history’. This is short-sighted and Dr John W. Hawkins’ impressive new book well and truly rebukes the notion. It would be fair to say that, like many figures celebrated in their time through a grasp of the zeitgeist …
Read More »Fred Burnaby: The Victorian Adventurer
The incomparable Colonel Frederick Gustavus Burnaby (1842-1885) In 1876 Fred Burnaby returned from an epic winter-ride on horseback and by sledge to the Khanate of Khiva, in the heart of central Asia. His book, A Ride to Khiva, was an instant hit and ran to eleven editions in the space of a year. On Horseback through Asia Minor, written after …
Read More »Unlocking Bag End: Tolkien and the Victorian Arts and Crafts Movement
In a hole in the ground there was a library, a billiard room, not to mention a luxurious smoking room with comfortable seats soft enough to get lost in. Above there would seem to be rolling hills, and a nice round window looks out onto lush views of an idyllic countryside. This idyllic retreat is not set in JRR Tolkien’s …
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