Victorians, eminent and otherwise

July 28, 2008 7:00 AM

The Victorian Web is your one-stop resource for England in the Victorian era (1837-1901). The site is much too extensive to give but a flavor. It is divided into 20 categories, including Technology, Gender Matters, Economic Contexts, Authors, Political History, Theater and Popular Entertainment, Science and Genre and Technique. Here are a few examples of the articles inside: Inventions in Alice in Wonderland, The Role of the Victorian Army, Earth Yenneps: Victorian Back Slang (and a glossary of same), Algernon Charles Swinburne and the Philosophy of Androgyny, Hermaphrodeity, and Victorian Sexual Mores, Evolution, progress and natural laws and, of course, Queen Victoria.
posted by Kattullus (10 comments total)

The Victorian Web has featured on the front page twice before (the first linked to the Punch subsite, and the other as a throwaway supporting link) but neither post was about the site itself or, for that matter, its multivaried wonders.
posted by Kattullus at 7:04 AM on July 28, 2008

I use this resource all the time when writing my essays, yay for legitimate academic resources that a person can trust.
posted by Fizz at 7:11 AM on July 28, 2008

Wow, great post.

Both here and for about 4 paragraphs into the article, I was reading that as "black slang" and I was waiting patiently to get the part about negro slaves. It also made this sentence kind of hilarious: "In the mid-1960s a middle-aged London lady tried to teach me back slang."

Even a humorous note from Maxwell who for some reason I always thought was a dour Scot.
posted by DU at 7:14 AM on July 28, 2008

At first I was just going to post the backslang links but I got lost in the entrails of The Victorian Web and decided that the site merited a proper FPP.

Though, as far as backslang goes, it's interesting to note its differences from French Verlan and that backslang has mostly disappered while Verlan persists. I don't suppose if anyone knows if rhyming slang exists in French today?
posted by Kattullus at 7:23 AM on July 28, 2008

A middle-aged London lady in the 1960s, or the 1860s for that matter, could well have been black.
posted by Abiezer at 8:35 AM on July 28, 2008

May I just add that the sidebar at (Mefi's own) The Little Professor contains an absolute plethora of links to all manner of Victoriana sites.
posted by peacay at 8:58 AM on July 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Might I just add that Thomas J Wise's (never realized before TJW was female) blog is a delight in and of itself. Thanks for the link, peacay.
posted by Kattullus at 9:12 AM on July 28, 2008

the site merited a proper FPP

Indeed.
posted by stbalbach at 12:28 PM on July 28, 2008

Excellent post! I have a writing project that needed a resource like this and I can't tell you how thrilled I am to see this.
posted by Ber at 1:47 PM on July 28, 2008

*blush*

An important counterpart to the Victorian Web is the Victoria Research Web, a scholarly guide to locating and using all things Victorian. (The section on finding affordable lodgings in the UK, incidentally, may be of interest even to non-Victorianists.)
posted by thomas j wise at 2:15 PM on July 28, 2008