Victorian Web

Heroic, youthful-looking Nelson standing in front of a boat's prow, seen here against a deep blue sky.

Unveiled #Onthisday 1809, in #Birmingham's Bull Ring, the earliest memorial to Nelson, sculptor Richard Wesmacott's earliest public work, & Birmingham's first public statue (photo, © Dr Craig Thornber—many thanks!) victorianweb.org/sculpture/we...
#sculpture

Cover of the book, with a Victorian gentleman handing a lady down some steps...

Another new & very informative book review, this time by Sara Murphy of Helena Esser's "Ouida". One intriguing subject is the the way Ouida "challenges […] and subverts binary Victorian notions of gender." www.victorianweb.org/authors/ouid... #gendermatters

Our autumn online lecture series celebrates the remarkable recent flourishing of publications on Victorian architecture and related topics. All the speakers are the authors of new books, either just published or forthcoming.

Book here: bit.ly/4pOE2jD

#booktalks

Oh! "one of the finest illustrated books of the Victorian era" and "a landmark in British publishing"! Women illustrators too. Very enticing!

Small haycocks at intervals across a field, with the mellow sun going down behind the trees at the edge

"Haycocks and Sun" by Norman Garstin (1847–1926), c. 1886, capturing the glow of late summer nights--or, if a day like the one just over here, autumn nights! Garstin was one of the wonderful Newlyn School of artists. victorianweb.org/painting/gar...

Sunset streaks the sky as people wend their way to a church with a steeple visible above them on a wooded hillside near the coast.

"Going to Evening Church," Samuel Palmer, 1874. Palmer saw churches as "the most charming points of an English landscape—gems of sentiment for which our woods & green slopes, & hedgerow elms, are the lovely and appropriate setting.” #Sunday #painting victorianweb.org/painting/pal...

Rows of people in the audience, some raptly watching, others chatting, the mother looking lovingly down at her baby, a rogue slouching at the end--lots of life!

"A Cheap Theatre — Saturday Night"--illustration for Dickens's "The Uncommercial Traveller"--all human life is here, including a mother feeding her baby, not much interested in the show! victorianweb.org/art/illustra...

Thank you! Had never thought of this way of appreciating them!

Thank you! Will make sure these are listed in appropriate bibliographies--such a boon, especially for independent scholars without access to academic libraries.

Victorian Alchemy Victorian Alchemy explores nineteenth-century conceptions of ancient Egypt as this extant civilisation was being ‘rediscovered’ in the modern world. With its material remnants somewhat paradoxically s...

All of our books are open access- happy to suggest some other cracking titles on this era, including this one... uclpress.co.uk/book/victori...

Head and shoulders portrait of a man. He is balding and has a white beard. He is dressed in black, but has a red handkerchief peeping out of his jacket pocket.

Born #OnThisDay 1819 Edward William Watkin, Liberal MP for Great Yarmouth 1857, Stockport 1864-8 (& later MP for Hythe). He was a major railway entrepreneur & made a failed attempt to extend his network to France with a Channel Tunnel.

A lovely window! Which church? Yes, it's been such a beautiful day!

Cover of Caroline Daker's ed. of essays on Alfred Morrison and his colllections

Lundy Island in the distance, sunset behind, foam-tipped sea with tiny sailboat in the foreground.

Delighted to learn that this book is open access and can be downloaded here: uclpress.co.uk/book/million... (in case you didn't see this info. elsewhere). John Brett's lovely "Sunset Off Lundy Island" (1872) was just one of Morrison's many acquisitions victorianweb.org/painting/bre...

Front cover of Richard Burton's translation the Kama Sutra, 1883.

You know, we have a great collection of essays, funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada, on pregnancy & childbirth in the Age of Victoria. Take a look! This is an illustration for Sarah Bull's essay, "Sexual Knowledge in Print Culture" victorianweb.org/science/mate...

The journal Victorians (formerly The Victorian Newsletter) is out, with new format and new editor Kristen Pond, featuring a forum on amateurism and professionalization in science with intro by @aktange.bsky.social. Some terrific work here, and all is Open Access. muse.jhu.edu/issue/55573 #C19th

Rows of Chelsea Pensioners in their red jackets (but bareheaded), gathered in the chapel, with flags high up along the walls but prayer-books in their hands.

"The Last Muster, #Sunday at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea," by Sir Hubert von Herkomer, R. A. (1849-1914)
1875 (courtesy of the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight). A movingly entitled, picturesque scene of the aged pensioners in chapel, victorianweb.org/painting/her... #painting

4-poster double white bed with white curtains and rose motifs on the top boards. Apart from the roses, a wee bit clinical?

#Goodnight (in UK!) with this four-poster bed, designed in 1900, now in the reconstructed Mackintosh House at the Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow. Clean lines, Art Nouveau ornaments, not sure how comfy! victorianweb.org/art/design/m...

Do keep an eye on our listings: victorianweb.org/misc/confere...! The 1st part of Visual Theology's conference, looking at cross-currents between the visual arts & theological ideas of medieval times, the 19c & today, is on Oct 24-26, in NY & online! See visualtheology.org.uk/beauty-and-f...

Not new--but still of much interest: Jo Devereux's review of Simon Joyce's "LGBT Victorians: Sexuality and Gender in the Nineteenth-Century Archives" and Meg Dobbins's "Queer Economic Dissonance and Victorian Literature" victorianweb.org/gender/revie...

A wooden house at Hildesheim, several stories high with tall gables and a facade elaborately carved with intricate patterning (sadly, it burnt down).

"Another feature of German house architecture is the frequency, especially in the northern provinces, of houses wholly constructed of wood.” Here's a marvellous example, alas long gone! victorianweb.org/drawings/bre...

I love these cast iron Juliet balconies on the 1837 Georgian townhouses on Newton Place in Glasgow.

Cont./

#glasgow #architecture #glasgowbuildings #palmette #metalwork #decorativemetalwork #architecturephotography

The rosy-cheeked young woman in her pink blouse looks up from reading the letter she holds, but somehow still looks at it sideways! She can't take her eyes off it! Her head is in the clouds here!

The expression of the recipient in "The Love Letter" by William Strang, c. 1912, is just priceless. victorianweb.org/painting/str.... -- emails or e-cards (let alone shorter forms of communication) wouldn't give the artist the same scope! #snailmail

Front cover of the book, with title, author's name, and a background pattern of mouths, open to various degrees

Lewis Carroll's Sylvie and Bruno--the young Bruno clearly embracing his "vocal differences" in an idyllic natural setting

Another new review! Lindsey Carman Williams takes a close look at Riley McGuire's original & eye-opening "Dysfluent in Fiction: Vocal Disability and Nineteenth-Century Literature," dealing with a range of problems from stammering to mutism — a must read! www.victorianweb.org/science/heal...

Mother shows off her baby's first tooth -- it's a little cobled kitchen but a happy home

Charity is dispensed on the doorstep, and gratefully recieved.

"The #Sunday Magazine was full of homely and uplifting material, suitable for the day of the week, and had some notable illustrators. Simon Cooke introduces the periodical, and shows, amongst others, these illustrations by Edward Hughes victorianweb.org/periodicals/...

Several shiny conkers which have fallen on the rough grass at the wayside, with two of the green prickly cases.

It's the time of year for "Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls" (Gerard Manley Hopkins's sonnet, "Pied Beauty"). Some of Hopkins's descriptions stay with you forever victorianweb.org/authors/hopk... #autumn #poetry #nature

Circular concert hall with a decorative sculpted frieze below the domed roof.

Just to remind you that tomorow is the last night of the #proms! It looks very promising! This is the venue, of course: the venerable Victorian Royal Albert Hall, designed by Captain Francis Fowke, victorianweb.org/art/architec...

We are part of this year’s Open House Festival in London. The Vic Soc are based in Bedford Park, Chiswick. Our building is Grade II, 1880 and designed by E. J. May. Just drop-in between 11.00 am and 5.00 pm on Sat 13th September. Read more bit.ly/3UDOCf9

Women seting off home, with youngsters too, as the last wagon leaves the field, loaded with hay, and waved off by other farm workers--all in the mellow light of evening

"The Last Load," by George John Pinwell (1842-1875), a watercolour of 1869, tells not only of the end of a day of harvesting in autumn, but the passing of a whole way of life.... victorianweb.org/painting/pin...

These new parents don't know whether they're coming or going.... William De Morgan's sense of humour is so appealing! victorianweb.org/art/design/d...
#tiles #birds #humour #Victorian

A young wowan in a blue gown leans on a stone wall looking wistfully out to a strip of sea, with land in the distance, while the birds, mainly grey with yellow crests, stand beside her

"Waiting and Watching" by Henry Stacy Marks, a watercolour of 1886. This pair of magnificent crowned cranes throws the woman's loneliness into relief, as she waits (surely!) for her sweetheart to return victorianweb.org/victorian/pa... #painting #birds #sea