TRAVEL BACK IN TIME WITH THE BBC'S RUTH GOODMAN We know what life was like for Victoria and Albert. But what was it like for a commoner - like you or me? How did it feel to cook with coal and wash with tea leaves? Drink beer for breakfast and clean your teeth with cuttlefish? Catch the omnibus to work and do the laundry in your corset? How to be a Victorian is a radical new approach to history; a journey back in time more personal than anything before, illuminating the overlapping worlds of health, sex, fashion, food, school, work and play. Surviving everyday life came down to the gritty details, the small necessities and tricks of living and this book will show you how. ______________________ 'Goodman skilfully creates a portrait of daily Victorian life with accessible, compelling, and deeply sensory prose' Erin Entrada Kelly 'We're lucky to have such a knowledgeable cicerone as Ruth Goodman . . . Revelatory' Alexandra Kimball 'Goodman's research is impeccable . . . taking the reader through an average day and presenting the oddities of life without condescension' Patricia Hagen

A “revelatory” (Wall Street Journal) romp through the intimate details of Victorian life, by an historian who has cheerfully endured them all. Lauded by critics, How to Be a Victorian is an enchanting manual for the insatiably curious, the “the cheapest time-travel machine you’ll find” (NPR). Readers have fallen in love with Ruth Goodman, an historian who believes in getting her hands dirty. Drawing on her own firsthand adventures living in re-created Victorian conditions, Goodman serves as our bustling guide to nineteenth-century life. Proceeding from daybreak to bedtime, this charming, illustrative work “imagines the Victorians as intrepid survivors” (New Republic) of the most perennially fascinating era of British history. From lacing into a corset after a round of calisthenics to slipping opium to the little ones, Goodman’s account of Victorian life “makes you feel as if you could pass as a native” (The New Yorker).

TRAVEL BACK IN TIME WITH THE BBC'S RUTH GOODMAN We know all about the dramas that played out in the Tudor court - most notably those of Henry VIII - but what was life really like for a commoner like you or me? To answer this question, the renowned "method historian" Ruth Goodman has slept, washed and cooked as the Tudors did - so you don't have to! She is your expert guide to this fascinating era, drawing on years of practical historical study to show how our ancestors coped with everyday life. Using a vast range of sources, she takes you back to when soot was used as toothpaste and the "upper crust" was served to the wealthier members of the house. Exploring how the Tudors learnt, danced and even stood according to the latest fashion, she reveals what it all felt, smelt and tasted like, from morning until night. If you enjoyed the writing of Hilary Mantel and Philippa Gregory, you will love discovering the true stories. ***** 'Ruth is the queen of living history, long may she reign!' Lucy Worsley 'A deeply researched and endlessly fascinating account of what it was like to live as a Tudor' Tracy Borman, author of Thomas Cromwell 'Always entertaining, and her narrative is often lifted by the fact that she has taken the trouble to experience many of the alien aspects of Tudor life' Observer 'Goodman's latest foray into immersive history is a revelation . . . It's the next best thing to being there' Sarah Ferguson, New York Times Book Review

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR A New York Times Book Review Editors Choice Selection An erudite romp through the intimate details of life in Tudor England, Goodman's latest...is a revelation (New York Times Book Review).

Do you want to write historical fiction? Join Meredith Allard, the executive editor of The Copperfield Review, the award-winning literary journal for readers and writers of historical fiction, as she shares tips and tricks for creating believable historical worlds through targeted research and a vivid imagination. Give in to your daydreams. Do the work. Let your creativity loose into the world so you can share your love of history and your passion for the written word with others.

Anxiety. Addiction. Depression. We associate these words with the challenges of modern life. Rarely do we consider how these conditions shaped past generations. Using archival sources, testimonies, and her grandfather Walter Parker’s experiences, the author not only paints a vivid picture of life in an English Victorian village, but she also draws upon psychological theory to explore the lives of her working-class ancestors. What did your forebears inherit from their parents? Which psychological characteristics did your ancestors hand down? A Victorian’s Inheritance can help you find answers.

What we can learn about caregiving and community from the Victorian novel In Communities of Care, Talia Schaffer explores Victorian fictional representations of care communities, small voluntary groups that coalesce around someone in need. Drawing lessons from Victorian sociality, Schaffer proposes a theory of communal care and a mode of critical reading centered on an ethics of care. In the Victorian era, medical science offered little hope for cure of illness or disability, and chronic invalidism and lengthy convalescences were common. Small communities might gather around afflicted individuals to minister to their needs and palliate their suffering. Communities of Care examines these groups in the novels of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Henry James, and Charlotte Yonge, and studies the relationships that they exemplify. How do carers become part of the community? How do they negotiate status? How do caring emotions develop? And what does it mean to think of care as an activity rather than a feeling? Contrasting the Victorian emphasis on community and social structure with modern individualism and interiority, Schaffer’s sympathetic readings draw us closer to the worldview from which these novels emerged. Schaffer also considers the ways in which these models of carework could inform and improve practice in criticism, in teaching, and in our daily lives. Through the lens of care, Schaffer discovers a vital form of communal relationship in the Victorian novel. Communities of Care also demonstrates that literary criticism done well is the best care that scholars can give to texts.