The Victorian Years

Belying her dour reputation, Queen Victoria once remarked, 'I am not at all an admirer or approver of our very dull Sunday'. Primary source material needs to be carefully selected and skilfully used. Margaret Sharman deftly slots her judiciously chosen extracts into a very readable text, which is further enlivened by brief newspaper-style reports highlighting many of the significant issues and events of the period; such as 'Better conditions for mining children', 'Cheaper letters on the way' and 'Labourers champion an MP'. At the end of an era spanning the longest reign in British history, Britain had doubled its population and acquired an Empire 'on which the sun never set'. In 60 well-illustrated pages, concluding with a section on famous Victorians, the author attains a very wide, balanced coverage of many aspects of life during this tremendous period of economic development, advances in public welfare, and scientific and cultural achievements. Not all Victoria's subjects benefited from this age of expansion, however, and the author never lets us forget the great divide that still existed between the living and working conditions of the rich and the poor.