The Summer of 1871: Ouida and Mario

In 1871, Ouida left for a tour of the continent. The tour turned into a life-time’s decision: from 1871 until her death in 1908 Ouida was to live in Tuscany.  What were the possible prompts for her move to Italy, her increasing interest in politics and in how writing can have a social impact? Ouida’s…More

G.W.M. Reynolds’s Mysterious London

It’s hardly surprising that cities demand technology to make sense of them: after all, they are products of technology. Even the most ancient ones (which to us would have been no more than small towns) depended on technology for their creation and maintenance. A former director of the Archaeological Institute in London, Vere Gordon Childe,…More

The Mysteries of London

What are the Mysteries of London? This is the first installment of a set of blog posts connected to a week-long course on Victorian London, covering G.W.M. Reynolds’s *The Mysteries of London*, *The String of Pearls* (Sweeney Todd), both from the 1840s, and some Sherlock Holmes tales from the 1890s.More