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[[File:707471025.0.m.jpg|200px|thumbnail|left|]]When we say “Victorian Britain”, we’re referring, loosely, to the period that fell between Queen Victoria’s reign from 1837-1901. This was an era of massive societal development upheaval -- the effects of the Industrial Revolution, the growth of the British Empire, the rise of scientific theories, and the advent of secularism are just a few topics that comprise Victoria's reignmixed things up in Victorian Britain. It was also during this time that the British Empire expanded exponentially. By the beginning of the twentieth century, This book list deals with things at "home" in Britain would come to rule over almost 25% of the world’s population.<ref>Brendon, Piers. The Decline and Fall of as well as things abroad in the British Empire, 1781-1997. New York: Vintage Books, 2010.</ref> As the saying went: “The sun never sets on the British Empire.”<ref>This phrase was commonly published in multiple newspapers, magazines, and even children's encyclopedias.</ref>

This was an era rich in social history -- from By the beginning of the Industrial Revolutiontwentieth century, to the rise British Empire ruled over almost 25% of scientific theoriesthe world’s population.<ref>Brendon, to the advent Piers. The Decline and Fall of secularism and the separation of Church and State British Empire, 1781-- understanding 1997. New York: Vintage Books, 2010.</ref> No small feat. As the saying went: “The sun never sets on the Victorian period is no easy taskBritish Empire.”<ref>This phrase was commonly published in multiple newspapers, magazines, and even children's encyclopedias.</ref>

1. Jan Morris: ''The Pax Britannica Trilogy''. This series is regarded as one books listed below just barely brush the surface of the most comprehensive and readable histories history of the progress nineteenth-century Britain and fall of the British its Empire, but they are a good place to start. The series is divided into three books, in the following order: <br />

1. Jan Morris: ''Heaven’s Command: An Imperial ProgressThe Pax Britannica Trilogy''.This series is regarded as one of the most comprehensive and readable histories of the rapid progress, and eventual fall of the British Empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The volumes read almost like a novel as Morris encapsulates her reader with the sights, sounds, and smells of the Empire. The series is divided into three books, in the following order:

# ''Heaven’s Command: An Imperial Progress'' # ''Pax Britannica: Climax of an Empire'' # ''Farewell the Trumpets: An Imperial Retreat''

2. Henry Mayhew: ''London Labour and the London Poor'' – This four volume work by social theorist Henry Mayhew is full of rich and , accurate accounts of what life was like for the "down and out" (the poor and working classes) in Victorian London. Mayhew interviewed everyone from small shop owners , to prostitutes , to pure-finders (those who collected dog poop for money). This groundbreaking look into the life of London's poorest was, and remains, one of the most important works on working-class culture ever published. Mayhew's work has also been annotated by Penguin Classics into a 512-page book as well.

3. Bernard Lightman: ''Victorian Science in Context'' – Science was an extremely important part of life in Victorian England. New scientific discoveries were being made almost daily, and due to fewer taxes on publishingfor the first time, newspapers were affordable to almost everyone, so scientific knowledge spread like wildfire among all classes. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was published right in the middle of the Victorian era, in 1859. To those living in the nineteenth century, science was somewhat akin to magic, and was an endless source of fascination.

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4. Steven Johnson: ''The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic'' – This book is a super fun, quick read on nineteenth-century medical history that examines a particular outbreak of cholera in London in 1854, and a doctor named John Snow who helped put an end to it. Johnson's work explains how theories of contagion evolved from blaming sickness on "bad air"(miasma), to blaming sickness on bacteria due that arose from unsanitary conditions. Dr. John Snow's findings changed the nature of epidemiology forever -- one cannot overemphasize the importance of this study.

5. Sally Mitchell: ''Daily Life in Victorian England'' – This book is a quick primer on social history in Victorian England. It deals mostly with the rise of the middle class, which is a very important part of nineteenth-century history. Great for This book takes on a quick overview of vast subject matter, so the information contained within is condensed, and can sometimes lean toward being oversimplified. For those interested in learning more about the Victorian social historyperiod, Mitchell's book is a good place to begin, though.

6. Alex Owen: ''The Darkened Room: Women, Power and Spiritualism in Late Victorian England'' – While this book deals with a specific subject matter, it is a wonderful introduction to the little-explored now burgeoning subject of the life of women during the Victorian period. In zeroing in on spiritualism as a mechanism by which women subverted traditional gender relations, Owen also examines the role of gender during this era in a more general sense. With the advent of science, Victorians became obsessed with explaining the unexplainable, and Owen does a magnificent job of explaining the place of such pseudoscience during this period.

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7. Lytton Strachey: ''Eminent Victorians'' – This work, first published in 1918, was one of the first biographies to ''not'' examine only great (white) men who did great things. Strachey's style helped replace a certain reverence that Victorians usually had held for famous figures , with a healthy skepticism of these figures' actions. Strachey examines his subjects' great notable deeds alongside their faults, all the while displaying great wit and undeniable readability.

8. Richard Ellmann: ''Oscar Wilde'' – With a subject like Oscar Wilde, a biographer would be hard-pressed to create a work that didn't bring the reader directly into the world of its subjectread like a best-selling novel. Ellmann's work is the definitive biography of Wilde; it brilliantly juxtaposes Wilde’s eccentricities against straight-laced Victorian society. It's a hefty read at over 700 pages, but well worth it. [[File:vicinfidels.jpg|200px|right|thumbnail|]]9. Judith Flanders: ''Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England'' – This is a fun, quick read on the daily lives of Victorian upper and middle class people. Flanders delightfully illustrates the real "stuff" of nineteenth-century England: What did they do all day, what did they wear, what did they eat? Her main flaw is the she largely ignores the lives of the working classes, which who made up the majority of Victorian society, but the this work is , nevertheless, an interesting nonethelesslook into the life of the new middle class in Britain.

10. Edward Royle: ''Victorian Infidels: The Origins of the British Secularist Movement'' – A little mentioned book among modern British historians, but an a very important work , nonetheless. Royle’s work study examines the beginning beginnings of secularism in Britain the UK, outside the context of class and political boundaries – a method long overdue when this book was . Before Royle, most British historians considered atheism/agnosticism as products of working-class distrust of the State. Royle's work changed all that, and it is perhaps one of the most important books on the beginnings of secularism ever published. [[File:vicinfidels.jpg|200px]]