Judith Flanders takes a novel approach to rediscovering the lives of our 19th century forebears in her The Victorian House. She pays them a visit. Perhaps mindful of the success of the Channel 4 series, The 1900 House and The 1940s House, Flanders steps back a few decades earlier to embark on a room-by-room guide to a typical mid-Victorian family h...more

A middle class home, circa 1850, of the sort that many people live in today, is the focus of Judith Flanders' book. The Victorian age is both recent and unimaginably distant. In the most prosperous and technologically advanced nation in the world, people carried slops up and down stairs; buried meat in fresh earth to prevent mould forming; wrung sh...more

Patrick Parker, child of bomb-devastated Coventry, adored and encouraged by his mother, fulfils his dream destiny to be a great architect and bridge builder. Audrey Wapshott, born at the same time, feels her dream destiny is to become Patrick's wife. But ambitious Patrick has other plans and Audrey, abandoned, is left to follow her own, random path...more

A story of high intrigue and low politics, of brutal murder and cunning conspiracies, set against the backdrop of a fascinating period in British history and introducing an ingenious, pragmatic, and unforgettable hero. St. Giles, London, 1829—three people have been brutally murdered and the city simmers with anger and political unrest. Pyke, some...more

Fat and fifty, educated only to be a wife and mother, Ruby Constad has reached a point of crisis. Her husband, Leon, lies in a nursing home after a stroke that has left him paralyzed; her grown-up children are gone. In her anguish Ruby appeals for help to a half-remembered figure from her colonial Indigenous girlhood — Sister Benedicta. Gradually...more