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Victorian Farm | Edwardian Farm -- 18 hours of BBC experimental archeology/historical documentaries, online. Archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn and historian Ruth Goodman spend two years living the life of rural country farmers.
posted by crunchland on Jan 15, 2012 - 33 comments

The Truth about Christmas Carols -- Howard Goodall uncovers the surprising and often secret history of the Christmas carol in this hour-long BBC documentary.
posted by crunchland on Dec 25, 2011 - 9 comments

The Elements of Drawing: John Ruskin's Teaching Collection at Oxford digitizes the drawings, engravings, and paintings that John Ruskin collected (and created) for use in teaching drawing. The objects can be viewed separately or in their teaching order and context, with Ruskin's own catalog annotations. The site also suggests how modern art students can put the collection to use, with instructional video and a variety of drawing exercises. Ruskin also assembled another fine art collection for working-class viewers in Sheffield; you can see that collection at the Museum of Sheffield, which also helps sponsor a digital reconstruction of the original museum building, the St. George's Museum.
posted by thomas j wise on Nov 14, 2011 - 5 comments

A Few Popular Misconceptions And Victorians And Sex
posted by The Whelk on Oct 18, 2011 - 28 comments

Portraits of married couples from the Victorian era. [more inside]
posted by gman on Aug 29, 2011 - 77 comments

Melanie Bilenker documents quiet moments in a unique way. Precious metals, ebony and epoxy resin are the canvas, and human hair is the material used to delicately capture life's simpler things. [more inside]
posted by kinnakeet on Aug 4, 2011 - 6 comments

Deanne Gist helps romance novel authors learn the mechanics of Victorian era women's underwear.
posted by reenum on Jul 19, 2011 - 95 comments

BRUCE ROSENBAUM and his wife, Melanie, cook their food on what looks like a cast-iron Victorian stove. But the stove, like many items in the Rosenbaums' kitchen, has been gutted and repurposed. There's a modern appliance inside that antique shell, a theme that repeats itself from the fridge to their water heater. "We created this romantic Victorian feel to it," Bruce Rosenbaum said. "But everything works." The Massachusetts couple have steampunked their kitchen. [more inside]
posted by fixedgear on Feb 28, 2011 - 113 comments

Smiling Victorians is a collection of photos of smiling Victorian (and Edwardian!) people. And one photo of the Victorianest smile of all!
posted by ocherdraco on Dec 28, 2010 - 21 comments

Chris Kimball prepares a 12-course meal from Fannie Farmer's 1896 cookbook. Using only a coal stove and other authentic Victorian-era kitchen staples, the chef, who lives in Fannie Farmer's former home, recreated a classic holiday Victorian meal from her iconic 1896 cookbook.

The twelve courses included: "rissoles (filled and fried puff pastry), mock turtle soup with fried brain balls, lobster à l’Américaine, roast goose with chestnut stuffing and jus, wood-grilled salmon, roast saddle of venison, Canton punch, three molded Victorian jellies and a spectacular French-inspired Mandarin cake."

Chris Kimball is the creator of public television's America's Test Kitchen) and Cook's Illustrated. Naturally, he chronicled the experience in a book, aptly titled, Fannie's Last Supper. In it, he offers some moden adaptations of Fannie Farmer's recipes. A film depicting the difficulties of authentically re-creating the meal airs this Fall.
posted by misha on Oct 6, 2010 - 45 comments

Emory University has made more than 1,200 yellowback novels available as PDF downloads. Yellowbacks were inexpensive books marketed largely to railway travelers in 19th century Britain.
posted by maurice on Sep 16, 2010 - 30 comments

On Tor.com, Mefi'sown Patrick Garcon (smoke) is writing lively essays on Victorian fantasy illustration, from the Pre-Raphaelites to Orientalism. [via mefi projects]
posted by The Whelk on Sep 3, 2010 - 12 comments

Platt Rogers Spencer was born in 1800 near the Hudson River. His family was too poor to afford paper so Spencer practiced on whatever was handy – leaves, bark, snow and sand – everything was a canvas for handwriting. [more inside]
posted by Sara C. on Jul 20, 2010 - 7 comments

An attempt at a collaborative translation of Plato’s Protagoras. Every day for a few months, Dhananjay Jagannathan will post roughly a page of the dialogue, side by side in Greek, in his own translation, and in Jowett’s classic 1871 translation. He's invited readers to comment and offer suggestions to improve the translation. Jagannathan's goal is to communicate Plato in English the way readers of his would have interpreted his Greek.
posted by unliteral on Jun 30, 2010 - 11 comments

The multi-talented William Morris' most famous achievement was the Kelmscott Press, which played a leading role in establishing the private press movement. Although the fifty-three books issued by the Press ranged from Shakespeare's poems to Morris' own work, one book remains prized above all others: the Kelmscott Chaucer. Published in 1896, and featuring illustrations by Edward Burne-Jones, the Kelmscott Chaucer was the most exquisite work of a press known for exquisite work. (Previous Morris.)
posted by thomas j wise on Jun 5, 2010 - 9 comments

The Anachronism "On a sun dappled summer day a science expedition propels two children toward an enigmatic encounter at the edge of their known world. Arriving on an isolated beach, they stumble upon the shipwreck of a robotic squid submarine." A short film, project site, via.
posted by dhruva on Apr 23, 2010 - 17 comments

The Victorian Dictionary: A motley collection of primary source documents and reference materials about Victorian London by historical thriller author Lee Jackson. Read the 1841 Census, browse peroid advertisements, zoom in on the 1881 Pocket Guide to London or just learn some dirty words.
posted by The Whelk on Apr 19, 2010 - 17 comments

Lacemaking in 19th-century Britain relied heavily upon child labour. Large numbers of children attended 'lace schools' from an early age, working long hours in miserable conditions. An 1860s parliamentary report on child labour describes their world. [more inside]
posted by Catseye on Apr 17, 2010 - 15 comments

"Some enjoyed sex but worried that they shouldn't. One slept apart from her husband 'to avoid temptation of too frequent intercourse.' " Standford Magazine on the accidental discovery of an unpublished sex survey of American women made 55 years before Kinsey . (via)
posted by The Whelk on Mar 31, 2010 - 50 comments

In the 1880s at a time when most Europeans were denied access to the Japanese interior an Italian photographer managed to capture many images of Old Japan. These were then beautifully and realistically hand painted and serve as a remarkable record of a world long since disappeared. Victorian-era photos of Japan.
posted by shakespeherian on Feb 22, 2010 - 28 comments

Peacay of BibliOdyessey highlights some stunning examples of Victorian Infographics from the Rumsey Map Collection(previously). (Direct Flickr link)
posted by The Whelk on Dec 22, 2009 - 21 comments

Want to see Trajan's Column, Michelangelo’s David (with or without fig leaf), and Notre Dame all in one room? (Well, two rooms.) The Victoria and Albert’s “Cast Courts” are an amazing example of Victorian plaster casting, allowing those who couldn't afford the Grand Tour a chance to see great works of art and architecture.
posted by JoanArkham on Oct 26, 2009 - 22 comments

Few things in history are as compelling as the duel. Refined and barbaric at the same time, this practice has had a checkered history. The rules of dueling were codified by the Irish in 1777 in the Code Duello (summarized here), which was codified at Clonmel Summer Assizes in 1777. As evidenced by these documents, dueling was in practice prior to the Irish rules being drafted. The procedure and philosophy behind duels is illustrated in this article. Dueling gained some traction in America in the 19th century, culminating in the famous Burr-Hamilton affair. There are many more resources to find out more here. For a list of famous duels, you can check out this list. Lest you think men were the only ones dueling, here are a few short anecdotes of women dueling. Reportedly, dueling is still legal in Paraguay, as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
posted by reenum on Sep 15, 2009 - 17 comments

Victorian mourning photography, featuring the recently departed in realistic poses.
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Aug 29, 2009 - 32 comments

Steampunk is OK, but I prefer Victorian Lowbrow.
posted by JoanArkham on Aug 18, 2009 - 17 comments

A website has been launched to preserve the history of Danvers State Insane Asylum. The Asylum, which opened in 1878 in Danvers, MA (site of the Salem Witch Trials) and closed in 1992, was featured in the horror movie Session 9, and may have been the inspiration for HP Lovecraft's Arkham Asylum. Its Kirkbride Wings, which once held the institution's living quarters, now house a 400+ unit apartment complex. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Jun 30, 2009 - 35 comments

The Architects' Journal (home of British architecture) has recently listed their top 10 architectural features of Star Wars. The article cites the Sandcrawler of Tatooine (possibly inspired by the Hôtel du lac in Tunisia, and in turn may have influenced Casa da Música [virtual tour, requires Quicktime] ), gave Bright Tree Village an honorary rating of BREEAM Excellent (top marks for environment-friendliness and sustainability), then embrace the Ecumenopolis that is Coruscant. This is not the first discussion of the architectural styles of the Star Wars universe. George Lucas once said "I'm basically a Victorian person," referring to his love of "all kinds of old things," including sort of Art Deco or Art Moderne-type. The retro-futuristic styles of Star Wars has gone on to inspire others.
posted by filthy light thief on Jun 25, 2009 - 12 comments

Colm Tóibín reviews Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love by Sheila Rowbotham a fine essay and good introduction to the life, thought and work of "the poet, socialist, free-thinker and sexual rebel" of high Victorian England, Edward Carpenter.
posted by Abiezer on Jan 25, 2009 - 15 comments

Gentlemen, are you searching for that special something to wear to the Paris Court Ball? Ladies, do you long to don a pelisse and kid shoes for your next round of afternoon calls? Vintage Textile can help. [more inside]
posted by chihiro on Oct 22, 2008 - 28 comments

In an intriguing blog entry the mysterious jasminembla muses about the man in the moon, and his relationship with thorns, linking finally to a most remarkable collection of sourced and footnoted Victorian Moon Lore authored by a Rev. Timothy Harley, 1885. In the "Man in the Moon" section, we learn that, indeed, the man in the moon has been traditionally linked with thorns, variously being exiled to the moon for stealing a bundle of brambles, strewing brambles on the path to church to hinder the pious, or cutting wood on the Sabbath, among other infractions - and that this folktale has existed since at least 1157, when an English abbot asks, in Latin, "Do you not know what the people call the rustic in the moon who carries the thorns? Whence one vulgarly speaking says, "The Rustic in the moon / Whose burden weighs him down / This changeless truth reveals / He profits not who steals." Furthermore, no less a personage than Shakespeare has mentioned the thorny situation of the poor man in the moon... and most interesting, perhaps, the rather convincing theory that the bramble-burdened man in the moon may very well be an older "Jack" of Jack and Jill fame, who did not steal, but was stolen by the moon, along with his sister. [more inside]
posted by taz on Jun 26, 2008 - 19 comments

NURSE CHILD WANTED, OR TO ADOPT -- The Advertiser, a Widow with a little family of her own, and moderate allowance from her late husband's friends, would be glad to accept the charge of a young child. Age no object. If sickly would receive a parent's care. Terms, Fifteen Shillings a month; or would adopt entirely if under two months for the small sum of Twelve pounds. This kindly nineteenth-century advertisement had a hidden meaning. If a woman paid her adoption fee to a baby farmer and handed over her infant, no one ever had to worry about that baby, ever again. [more inside]
posted by Countess Elena on Jun 7, 2008 - 38 comments

Sillof's Workshop features steampunk/gaslight versions of some pop culture's most-loved heroes, as well as dioramas based on Star Wars scenes.
posted by Eideteker on May 4, 2008 - 33 comments

Packed full of galleries of beautiful illustrations by Maxfield Parrish, Aubrey Beardsley, William Morris, Gustave Doré, Arthur Rackham and others with prints one can buy of any illustration, Artsy Craftsy includes a sumptuous collection of Victorian Fairies illustrations. The site also has the illustrated Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde, illustrations of cats in fairy tales, Magic Cats, and a selection of beautiful free ecards as well. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Dec 19, 2007 - 17 comments

The bearer of this letter is an old friend of mine not quite the right side of the blanket as they say in fact he is the son of a first rate butcher but his mother was a decent family called Hyssopps of the Glen so you see he is not so bad and is desireus of being the correct article.
The Young Visitors, or, Mister Salteena's Plan (written 1890, published 1919) is a remarkable little novel that offers an atypical perspective on the recreations of the late Victorian upper classes and boasts some of literature's most comprehensive descriptions of clothing. Its author was Daisy Ashford, a nine-year-old girl.
posted by Iridic on Nov 4, 2007 - 14 comments

The Buffalo State Hospital is a vast complex of moldering Victorian buildings, sitting right in the middle of a residential neighborhood of Buffalo. It is also an architectural gem, not only by Buffalo standards, but for the nation as a whole. It is one of the largest and most complex commissions of New England architect H. H. Richardson, who is known for promulgating his unique, heavy looking stone Romanesque variant of the then dominant Queen Anne style. The Buffalo asylum’s grounds were planned by landscape architect (and designer of Central Park) Fredrick Law Olmsted. [more inside]
posted by pieisexactlythree on Oct 26, 2007 - 16 comments

In the 19th century, English author Favell Mortimer wrote several books describing various countries to children. Apparently she didn't travel much. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Oct 2, 2007 - 34 comments

Louis Wain became one of the most famous British illustrators of the late Victorian and Edwardian era after trying to cheer up his wife Emily by drawing portraits of their pet cat, Peter. In addition to publishing a popular children's book about kittens, he was a founder of the U.K's National Cat Club who was instrumental in promoting the Cat Fancy movement, which encouraged Britons of all classes to view cats as lovable pets instead of household pests. Unfortunately, after Wain's wife Emily died of breast cancer, Wain gradually went mad due to psychosis and late onset schizophrenia, ending up in London's notorious Bethlehem Hospital (the etymological origin for the word bedlam). While at Bedlam, Wain continued to draw, but his cat portraits transformed into pure geometric abstraction and psychedelic fractals, but some see harbingers of madness in cryptically titled works, such as Early Indian Irish and The Fire of the Mind Agitates the Atmosphere. For more insight on Wain, check out this 1896 interview and this short film dramatizing the progression of Wain's schizophrenia through his art.
posted by jonp72 on Aug 12, 2007 - 25 comments

Julia Margaret Cameron did not begin her photography career until she was 48. She lived on the Isle of Wight in two adjacent cottages linked with a gothic tower that she called Dimbola Lodge. Many of her captivating photographs are of The Freshwater Circle, a group of artists and intellectuals centered around Alfred Tennyson, whose poems Idylls of the King, she illustrated with her photographs. Cameron's portraits of contemporaries -- Charles Darwin, George Frederic Watts, Edward Eyre, Thomas Carlyle, Julia Jackson (mother of Viginia Woolf) -- became significant because they were sometimes the only existing photographs of her subjects.
posted by jessamyn on Aug 9, 2007 - 16 comments

Things Gone By is an antique jewelry dealer specializing in the category of "mourning jewelry"; items worn in memory of the dead, usually involving locks of their hair & other materials. The mourning items are not limited to jewelry, as they also feature a gallery of mourning artwork, again made with the hair of the beloved deceased.
posted by jonson on Jul 9, 2007 - 10 comments

The Database of Mid-Victorian Wood-engraved Illustration (Centre for Editorial and Intertextual Research, Cardiff University) hosts well over eight hundred images from Victorian texts; you can browse the site by iconographic themes and features (tools, religion, etc.) or conduct more specific searches by author, publisher, and the like. For more overviews of Victorian book illustration, visit Bob Speel's nineteenth-century art website, which features a number of pages devoted to various topics in book illustration, and the Victorian Web. Illuminated Books features a small collection of digitized illustrated works, many of them Victorian; there's a larger collection at Children's Books Online. The Victorian novelist we most closely associate with book illustration is Charles Dickens, and David Perdue has brief biographical sketches of his various illustrators, with examples of their work. Famous illustrators with their own websites include Sir John Tenniel, Arthur Rackham, and Randolph Caldecott. (Main link via VICTORIA.)
posted by thomas j wise on Jun 29, 2007 - 14 comments

St. Nicholas Magazine.
posted by hama7 on Jun 11, 2007 - 10 comments

Dr. Grordborts Infallible Aether Oscillators is "a line of immensely dangerous yet simple to operate wave oscillation weapons" - rayguns - that includes the Manmelter 3600ZX, the Goliathon 83, and the F.M.O.M. Industries Wave Disrupter Gun. Designed by Greg Broadmore to evoke the old-school Flash Gordon serials, they bring a fun steampunk aesthetic to Weta's Collectibles' traditional movie tie-in fare.
posted by gemmy on May 28, 2007 - 12 comments

Studies in Scarlet: Marriage & Sexuality in the US & UK, 1815-1914 , courtesy of Harvard University, features digitized trial narratives for over 400 cases--some famous, most not. (Harvard also has a more general collection of trial narratives here.) There are earlier trial narratives at Rictor Norton's Homosexuality in Eighteenth Century England: A Sourcebook and Early Eighteenth-Century Newspaper Reports; see also CrimeCulture's Rogue's Gallery and a Victorian anthology, Curiosities of Street Literature (originally published in 1871). Albert Borowitz has a brief history of true crime narratives here. For more historical criminality from the investigator's point of view, check out the Forensic Medicine Archives Project at the University of Glasgow. (Main link via VICTORIA.)
posted by thomas j wise on Mar 15, 2007 - 13 comments

A very brief history of conservatories, and another. And little more on orangeries.
More than just a place to keep plants warm, conservatories peaked in popularity (and size) in the second half of the 19th century. They popped up all over Europe, wherever elites wanted to show off their 'exotic' plunders. Made from more than a million feet of glass, the Crystal Palace may have been the awesomest of them all: it was initially built to showcase the wonders of Victorian England, and its exhibits included the latest technological innovations, the largest organ in the world, a circus, objects from Australia, India, and other colonial lands, along with the many tropical plant species we usually associate with big glass buildings. The whole thing was later moved to South London and eventually housed a television station and became associated with a well-known football club. Finally, it burned to the ground in 1936. Coincidentally, Munich's copycat, the Glaspalast was destroyed by arson as well. (But each year's catalog of exhibits has been digitized!) Conservatories flourish in North America as well. San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers was assembled from a kit, survived the '06 earthquake, but had to be rebuilt after successive explosions, fires, rotten wood, and a massive wind-storm. (Don't miss their cooking tips, but watch out – their site may be NSFW.) And although they certainly aren't as popular as they used to be, contemporary conservatories can be found. Before you leave the world of glass houses, take a quick look at some photos of Detroit's hidden treasure.
posted by serazin on Mar 12, 2007 - 14 comments

Tradecards.
posted by hama7 on Dec 18, 2006 - 9 comments

I see dead people — Victorian post-mortem photographs. (via boingboing)
posted by spock on Oct 17, 2006 - 41 comments

Victorian Workhouses
I sometimes look up at the bit of blue sky
High over my head, with a tear in my eye.
Surrounded by walls that are too high to climb,
Confined like a felon without any crime...

posted by Miko on Sep 18, 2006 - 14 comments

Hippopotamouse - authentic works of victorian surrealism
posted by MetaMonkey on Sep 17, 2006 - 24 comments

The History of the Metropolitan Police offers a useful overview of both policework and assorted Shocking Crimes in nineteenth-century London. But there are so many more Victorian detectives--not to mention Victorian murderers--lurking about on the net. Sneak a peek at Charles Booth's notebooks, which record his walks with various London police officers, or read Charles Dickens' famous account of a night out with Inspector Charles Field (who later inspired Bleak House's Inspector Bucket). Put John Mapp on trial. Read some broadsides. Try to avoid Dr. Cream and Mary Ann Cotton. Executions, anyone? The Victorian Dictionary reprints a number of Victorian newspaper articles about criminal activity (click on "crime" to see a detailed listing). Of course, you can't forget this fellow.
posted by thomas j wise on Mar 31, 2006 - 7 comments

Live steam creations. We've seen steampunk robots in artwork, and read about them in fiction, but now someone has gone and built real, radio-controlled, steam-powered creatures that roll and creep and swim.
posted by Gamblor on Feb 10, 2006 - 13 comments

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