The Secret Art of Victorian Fore-edge Painting
They say that beauty is everywhere, often hidden in plain sight. In the case of the lost art of…
Defining Curiosity in the Victorian Era
What is curiosity? Does it change according to the ebbs and flows of time? While today we might associate it with…
‘A fairyland amongst the wildflowers’, Realism and Romance in the works of Beatrix Potter
An eager student of both the arts and the sciences Beatrix Potter’s childhood was equally enchanted by the discovery of…
Survival of the Thesis, Writing Advice from Charles Darwin
NB: For more on Charles Darwin’s outlook on human emotion see the article that prompted this post Thomas Dixon’s piece…
Dietary Didacticism in Wonderland
[NB: I wrote this piece for the Journal of Victorian Culture Online for ‘Alice’ Day who have kindly agreed that…
Growing your PhD Research
In the first year of your PhD, thoughts often feel scattered. Your PhD floats around unanchored and sometimes it feels like…
The Victorian Botanical Clock
The botanical clock, or ‘Watch of Flora’, was a garden plan hypothesised by the eighteenth-century naturalist Carl Linnaeus. This ‘pretty fancy…
Weekly Roundup of Curiosities #3
Article detailing how museums are working to digitize their estimated 3 billion natural history specimens! See also The Peabody Museum’s immense…
Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies and The Origins Debate.
Linley Sambourne’s cartoon ‘Man is but a Worm’, appearing in Punch in 1882 in depicts the evolution of man; from…
The Strange Story of Anna Kingsford
[ illustrations ‘Cold Wind’ & ‘Fake it till you make it’ by Rovina Cai] As the only Victorian medical student at…