I’ve been fascinated by the Victorian era since my early teens, and that was 50 years ago. So having spent half a century reading every novel from the period that I could find, many works of social history, and an awful lot of historical fiction, it’s unsurprising that much of the primary information in How the Victorians Lived was not totally new to me.
And yet I found it a captivating read. Perfect for social history aficionados, it contains a wealth of detail in highly readable form. The sort of details that don’t emerge in fiction. The details that are lost in non-fiction texts or are depicted through interminable boring references to dry academic sources. In How the Victorians Lived, we have just enough minutiae to make the topic come alive, without drowning in data.
For example, from the section “Inside the Workhouse”:
“The interiors were all similar with communal dormitories for sleeping in, a communal dining room for eating in, a large kitchen, a bakery, a brewery, an infirmary for the sick, a laundry room, a sewing room, a nursery for the babies, a schoolroom for the children and a garden for growing vegetables or an exercise yard. Some workhouses even kept pigs and chickens. Generally, the workhouses tried to be self sufficient to keep costs down.”
It continues: “…the conundrum was how to look after the poor humanely without encouraging entrance into the workhouses […] Discipline became the focal point of the workhouse system […] a complete lack of any material comforts….” She goes on to detail the process for families entering the workhouse, the clothing the inmates wore, the daily routine, work, food, etc, It’s rather grim.
This section helps enlighten the reader as to why the workhouse, though on paper sounding quite attractive, was designed to deter people from entering and became a dreaded institution. It also illustrates one of the key contradictions of the era: how social reforms that [arguably] aimed to improve the social condition could potentially make the lives of the poor even more harsh.
How the Victorians Lived is, for me, the ideal format for social history. It covers a huge range of topics: money, food, fashion, science and technology, communication and travel, medicine, crime and more. While it may not meet some standards of academic rigour, it does create a vivid picture of how people lived, the things they were concerned about, and all the upheavals that characterised this era of rapid change. All in all, a gripping read and highly recommended for anyone interested in better understanding the Victorian period.
Even if you thought you knew it pretty well already!
Thanks to the author, publisher Pen and Sword History and Netgalley for the ARC. All my reviews are 100% honest and unbiased, regardless of how I acquire the book.
#NetGalley #bookreview #ShonaParker #HowTheVictoriansLived @penandswordbooks.bsky.social
You might also like:
- Servants | Lucy Lethbridge
- Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management. Make sure you get the 1200-page unabridged version. The abridged version, at some 600 pages, is only the recipes, which are the least interesting part of this tome. Find it at the Gutenberg Library.
Thank you for taking the time to read my book and to write such a thoughtful and helpful review.