Yuying Zhang's article on the social expectations of Victorian women illumines the shifting nature of women's roles during the period. Further, Zhang posits that the seemingly separate spheres of labour and domesticity are not so separate as we may believe! Link in bio! #victorianculture

Take a look at Judith Hendra’s article on the domestic hearth in Victorian culture! Hendra draws from Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Frances Hodgson Burnett to illuminate the hearth’s many roles. Link in bio or here: jvc.oup.com/2024/03/01/t... #victorianstudies #journalofvictorianculture

Magic, incantations, and gothic motifs make Anandi Kar’s essay on affect in the medieval ambience of Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” the perfect read in the lead up to Halloween! Check it out here and in our bio: jvc.oup.com/2025/02/19/a... #victorian #victorianculture #victorianliterature

Contribute to the blog! Take a look at the JVC Online blog (jvc.oup.com) to get a feel for previous contributions and our style. You can find our contributor guidelines at: jvc.oup.com/contributor-... #victorianculture #victorianliterature

Victorian novels never go out of Style! In our latest blog post, Amber Alsaigh explores narrative and stylistic parallels between the songwriting of pop phenomenon Taylor Swift, and the novels of Thomas Hardy. jvc.oup.com/2025/10/22/t...

Check out Amber Alsaigh’s insightful research on the implications of Taylor Swift’s lyrics alongside Victorian literature, particularly Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd! Link in bio or here: jvc.oup.com/2025/10/22/t...

Have you ever worn jewelry made from your birthstone? So did Queen Victoria, with her trend-setting emerald engagement ring! Take a look at Samuel Mee’s article on Victorian jewelry here: jvc.oup.com/2025/10/07/v...

The winner of the Donald Gray Prize for best journal essay in the field is Matt Poland’s “Eliot at Yale,” which appeared in George Eliot-George Henry Lewes Studies 75.2 (co-edited by JVC editor Nancy Henry). The article is free to read until January: scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/george-...

Have you ever worn jewelry made from your birthstone? So did Queen Victoria, with her trend-setting emerald engagement ring! Take a look at Samuel Mee’s article on Victorian jewelry here: jvc.oup.com/2025/10/07/v...

🎶From reverent compositions to subversive street ballads🎶 Queen Victoria’s image was contested and co-opted through 19th-century popular song. Learn more about the monarch’s complex cultural after life in music: jvc.oup.com/2021/09/16/m...

Contribute to the blog! Take a look at the JVC Online blog (jvc.oup.com) to get a feel for previous contributions and our style. You can find our contributor guidelines at: jvc.oup.com/contributor-... #victorianculture #victorianliterature

Tennyson Talks start up again next week - we have a great line up of speakers all talks free details below @tennysonsociety.bsky.social @lindakhughes.bsky.social @jofvictculture.bsky.social @thevicsoc.bsky.social @michaeljsullivan.bsky.social

My short article on the nineteenth-century Bengali poet Toru Dutt's sonnets has been published in the @jofvictculture.bsky.social online. I am deeply grateful for this incredible opportunity. Please find the link to the blog post: jvc.oup.com/2025/09/04/r....

🎶From reverent compositions to subversive street ballads🎶 Queen Victoria’s image was contested and co-opted through 19th-century popular song. Learn more about the monarch’s complex cultural after life in music: jvc.oup.com/2021/09/16/m...

With Mother's Day on the horizon, take a look at this article by Jessica Cox where she connects breast-feeding in Victorian advice books with “Mansplaining.“🤰🏼 Read here: doi.org/10.1093/jvcu...

Breaking in your spring shoes? Have a look at Veronica Isaac's blogpost and these gorgeous satin boots - perhaps a pair of 'padded symmetricals' too! To hear more about these and the fascinating history of C19 music hall culture, read here: jvc.oup.com/2021/04/01/k...

Explore how 19th-c. literature—particularly works by Dickens and George Borrow—offers insight into the itinerant and Romani populations absent from the 1841 British census. Read here: jvc.oup.com/2025/04/14/i... #journalofvictorianculture #VictorianStudies

Alice Perrin’s gothic short story The Biscobra unleashes a creature of myth, science, and empire. A deadly lizard, a reincarnated child, and the collapse of imperial reason. Check out this blog post: jvc.oup.com/2022/06/03/t...

From the Salvation Army’s 19th-century strategies to today’s ethical shopping trends, our choices reflect personal identity & wider societal impact. Check out this blog post: jvc.oup.com/2022/08/22/c...

JVC Essay Prize Winner Sarah Betts, speaking on 'The Afterlife of a Stuart Princess' - to find out more, read her winning (open access) essay here: academic.oup.com/jvc/advance-...

🦷In Victorian fiction, false teeth were more than a cosmetic fix—they were a symbol of deception and hidden truths🦷 Learn how Thackeray used dentures to expose characters' secrets here: jvc.oup.com/2022/10/21/f... #journalofvictorianculture #VictorianLiterature #Victorian #19thcentury

👧Utopian child's play🧒H.G. Wells and Edith Nesbit believed play could change the future. Explore how their game manuals critiqued capitalism, nurtured imagination, and shaped a new vision for society: jvc.oup.com/2022/12/02/s...

Deadly decor? Did you know Victorian wallpapers could be deadly? Arsenic-laced pigments were common, and the consequences were tragic. From health risks to even murder, discover how "Arsenic's Golden Age" affected the world of wallpaper💀: jvc.oup.com/2023/12/14/a...

From Dickens to Burnett, the Victorian domestic hearth symbolizes comfort, warmth, and social contrast. Check out this blog post for a deep dive into the complexities of the hearth in 19th-century fiction. It's totally lit...🔥: jvc.oup.com/2024/03/01/t...

Learn more about miniature melodramas and pantomimes and how publishers like William West bridged the gap between London's grand theatres and these juvenile performances🎭✨ Read here: jvc.oup.com/2020/02/07/t... #TheatreHistory #19thCentury #journalofvictorianculture

From tales of madness and mistreatment to shocking crimes, explore how the British press shaped perceptions of vagrants. Read more here: jvc.oup.com/2020/02/14/m... #journalofvictorianculture #19thcentury #victorian

Explore the depths of the 19th century with Thomas Wallace Knox's Underground: Or, Life Below the Surface. From the catacombs to philosophical musings on society’s underworlds, read more about how subterranean spaces shaped moral and cultural ideas: jvc.oup.com/2020/01/24/m...

Check out the surprising similarities between Ellen Wood’s middle-class melodramas & today’s guilty-pleasure films. Read to discover how 19th-century sensation novels like East Lynne (1861) compare to modern Lifetime movies: jvc.oup.com/2024/04/18/e...

For the 175th anniversary of Mary De Morgan, a new play celebrates her imagination. The Vegan Tigress is getting great reviews: "The writing is sharp, funny, and fast-paced [...] It was with childlike wonder that I soaked up this story ****" everything-theatre.co.uk/2025/02/revi... @LynchPinTheatre

🎪Come one, come all!🎪Read how P.T. Barnum and General Tom Thumb became global sensations while on their 1844 European tour: jvc.oup.com/2025/02/05/p... #Barnum #TomThumb #VictorianEra #journalofvictorianculture #19thcentury

Love is in the air... and in the pudding!❤️You too could tackle Mrs. Beeton’s Half-Pay Pudding for a sweet Valentine's Day treat🍰 Check it out: jvc.oup.com/2012/04/22/m... #ValentinesDay #journalofvictorianculture #19thcentury #nineteenthcentury #baking #Victorian #greatbritishbakeoff

Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom: call for lesson plans on global decadence and aestheticism. More info here: jvc.oup.com/events-and-c...

Weird fiction? Yes, please. Rediscover Robert Murray Gilchrist, an often forgotten talent who influenced weird fiction long before Lovecraft, and his hybrid femme fatale/maternal archetypes as they challenge gender norms: jvc.oup.com/2024/11/26/t... #gothic #weirdfiction #Lovecraft

JVC Prize Essay Talk, 'The Afterlife of a Stuart Princess in Victorian Culture ', by Sarah Betts. Join us on Thursday 27th March, 6pm, Royal Holloway Picture Gallery. More info here: jvc.oup.com/events-and-c...

In North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell highlights how conflict fuels female agency. From Margaret Hale's activism to Bessy Higgins's resistance, check out how Gaskell portrays women breaking free from societal constraints: jvc.oup.com/2025/01/27/f... . . . #nineteenthcentury #victorianera #Gaskell

Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights isn’t just a tragic romance. It’s a radical critique of patriarchy, class, and oppression. Time to revisit this often misunderstood masterpiece: jvc.oup.com/2020/03/24/t... #WutheringHeights #EmilyBrontë #19thcentury #journalofvictrianculture

[New post] Alysha Ladha on the importance of Patrick Brontë. She argues that his 'emphasis on personal responsibility, commitment to justice, and belief in the transformative power of faith' are reflected in his daughters' novels. Read more: jvc.oup.com/2025/01/17/p...

Sherlock, who? Let me introduce you to the “petticoated police.” Explore how early female detectives like Mrs. Paschal, G, and others used intuition and embodied observation to crack cases. #19thcentury #Sherlock #victorian Link: jvc.oup.com/2020/05/22/t...

🎭 Costumes beyond the stage🎭 Discover the hidden meanings and histories of iconic garments from Ellen Terry’s Beetlewing Dress to Edwin Moxon’s embroidered shorts and explore how these costumes shaped performance and audience expectations. Read more: jvc.oup.com/2020/07/02/c...

In the 19th century, opiates were marketed to women as miracle cures. But the widespread use of laudanum led to addiction and had horrible consequences. Discover the dark history of opium in this fascinating blog post: jvc.oup.com/2020/12/18/t...

From the *wandering womb* to Victorian cures like vibrating machines, the history of hysteria is a wild ride. Discover how ancient beliefs and 19th-century science shaped the diagnosis that still echoes today: jvc.oup.com/2021/03/04/h...

Dig up the history of 19th-century medicine! From the rise of medical schools to the secretive world of body-snatching, uncover how the profession transformed during a time of rapid change!🩺💀 jvc.oup.com/2021/04/15/b...

Roseanne Ganley discusses H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds! Martians have evolved as the superior race in Wells' world and the text offers readers the opportunity to reflect on human evolution. Read here: jvc.oup.com/2020/02/24/h...

Dive back into Issue 26.2! Gemma Almond directs our attention to the design of Victorian spectacle and eyeglass frames–locating its role in Victorian constructions of ‘normalcy’ and ‘abnormalcy’ in regard to the body. Read here: academic.oup.com/jvc/article/...

Since the #MeToo movement, self-defense classes have empowered women both physically and mentally. Discover the history of women's self-defense, from Edith Garrud's Ju Jutsu classes for suffragettes to today's trauma-informed martial arts programs: jvc.oup.com/2021/09/02/w... #19thcentury

Lions and tigers and women, oh my! Read about the Victorian women who braved the lion’s cage! From Mrs. King, the first recorded "Lion Queen," to Ellen Chapman, the most famous of them all, the performances of these fearless women left a roaring legacy jvc.oup.com/2021/08/19/v... #nineteenthcentury

🌿From Victorian window gardening to today's #plantmoms and #plantdads, houseplants have always been for more than just decoration. Check out how the plant trend has bloomed and blossomed over time, connecting people and boosting well-being.🌿https://jvc.oup.com/2021/05/06/victorian-plantparenthood/

🎮 Final Fantasy VIII merges Victorian occultism, empire, and time travel in a neo-imperial narrative. Check out this blog post to explore how the game critiques gender, magic, and imperialism. 👑 jvc.oup.com/2021/08/26/n...

Who said the Victorians were prudes? From bawdy limericks to clever jokes about "red ink" accidents, check out how menstrual humor was embraced in 19th-century erotic poems. It is, indeed, "Bloody Hilarious." jvc.oup.com/2021/11/11/m... #journalofvictorianculture #19thcentury

“Come on, gang, we’ve got a mystery to solve!🐕🔍” Bensimon searches for clues to answer unsolved mysteries regarding the daguerreotypes of the April 1848 Chartist meeting, revealing insights into the working-class struggle and Victorian labor #19thcentury academic.oup.com/jvc/article/...