Don't forget to sign up for our Virtual Writing retreat - the perfect opportunity for dedicated Writing time for those upcoming winter deadlines ❄️

CURRAN FELLOWSHIPS awarded by The Research Society for Victorian Periodicals Applications due: 15 October 2025. Open to researchers of any age exploring the British periodical press of long C19. More information can be found here: rs4vp.org/awards/curra...

Exciting new Digital tool for Victorian scholars with @exacteditions.bsky.social ,providing a new, fully searchable window into The Illustrated London News, The Illustrated War News, The Graphic & The Sphere. For more information: For more information: publisher.exacteditions.com

The reading packs produced by the @vpfa.bsky.social's third sex reading group are always gorgeous, and the discussions are always great. What's not to love! Join us Wed 17th Sept @ 5.30pm UK time to discuss the highly problematic "Lodore". Everybody welcome... message for more details.

RSVP 2026 Conference Call for Papers: 'Movements and Migrations', to be held at Trinity College, Dublin, 23-25th July 2026. Share widely! @rs4vp.org

Join us for a virtual writing retreat designed for VPFA members! Working on a conference paper, article, thesis, or admin tasks? this structured retreat offers dedicated time, body doubling, and proven productivity techniques inspired by Rowena Murray. Drop in or stay the full day!

COMING SOON for VPFA Third Sex Reading Group. Email [email protected] to be added to our mailing list to find out how to sign up for future sessions 📖

🚨FINAL REMINDER🚨 What better way to spend your Saturday afternoon (especially with the terrible weather we've been having) than with a nice warm cuppa ☕️ and some great conversation with people in your field? Become a member to get your sign up link! victorianpopularfiction.org/membership-j...

📢 Just a few weeks left to submit your abstracts for our exciting conference at the University of Stirling in January! 🗓 Deadline: 22 Sept 📩 Email: [email protected]

Read about the projects and experiences of previous Mary Eliza Root prize winners (Anne Chapman, Lin Young, Jon Potter, Asma Char, Adele Guyton, Helen McKenzie, and Joanne Knowles) here: victorianpopularfiction.org/mer-prize-re... Apply by 30th September for your chance to visit Gladstone's Library

The 2025 prize is now open! (deadline: 30th September 2025). The prize offers the winning scholar two nights' accommodation (with breakfast and dinner) for up to three days' research at Gladstone's Library. To find out more about eligibility and process: victorianpopularfiction.org/mary-eliza-r...

Your reminder to become a VPFA member so you can attend our Virtual Tea Salon next month! ☕️✨️

VPFA Third Sex reading group will be returning for their first session of Season 6 on 17th September, 5.30-7pm. The topic will be Mary Shelley's Lodore, co-hosted with Susan Civale and Siobhan-Michelle Smith! Sign up here: www.eventbrite.com/e/lodore-tic...

The Editors of Victorian Popular Fictions are looking for guest editors for autumn special issues from 2027 - 2030. Please see the attached CFP. The deadline for proposals is 30th September 2025, and we are very happy to take any queries, please just email us at [email protected].

Step into the world of steam, scandal, and storytelling at our Virtual Victorian Tea Salon. Brew your favourite blend and join fellow members online for a lively afternoon discussion, creativity, and Victorian charm. All are welcome at our virtual tea table, whether sharing, reading, or sipping!

Following our successful annual conference at the Birmingham and Midlands Institute, the VPFA is pleased to announce it is now affiliated with the Birmingham & Midlands Institute (www.bmi.org.uk) [1/2]

Add to your reading list!

Please allow me to recommend some summer reading, followed with an invitation to join our book discussion. Everybody is welcome so please share widely (this poster has the correct start time of 5.30pm!) The text and audiobook are available on Internet Archive/Gutenberg. @vpfa.bsky.social

Delivered a paper at our conference this week? Why not turn it into a full article for the next general issue of Victorian Popular Fictions? Our latest issue is out now and is open access: victorianpopularfiction.org/publications...

Had such a fab time at #VPFAExtremes (as usual) and met so many lovely people (also as usual). Saw this cool window, too (less usual).

Well, #VPFAExtremes has been wonderful - the height of my summer so far, as ever! I am deeply grateful to be part such a fantastic, extremely warm and collegiate association. Thoroughly enjoyed the last few days - diolch pawb!

The last time I was at the @bmi1854.bsky.social was as a kid playing in a music competition with my brother....this week I was back for the @vpfa.bsky.social Annual Conference! It's been absolutely wonderful; thank you to everyone! #VPFAExtremes

First time attending a @vpfa.bsky.social event and #VPFAExtremes made it so easy, I almost forgot this was my first full on multi-day conference in two years! Had a lovely time, and I gave my paper today, and it went fine, and people seemed to enjoy it, which is the important stuff. I’ll be back!

After an amazing three days in Birmingham at the @vpfa.bsky.social annual conference, it's graduation of my last undergraduate cohort at the University of Greenwich - a truly talented year.

Lovely to see so many authors with Kent connections being celebrated at the @vpfa.bsky.social conference this week!

‪Still buzzing after an amazing #VPFAextremes conference! What a treat to hear so many talented speakers and to present on Hypnotic Gothic alongside Birkbeck pals! @vpfa.bsky.social #Gothic #victorian

Today's #VPFAExtremes has assembled FIVE (5) whole #Ouida scholars in its hybrid space! A lovely Study Day 2023 re-union with Lorraine Dubuisson, @ouidaite.bsky.social, Crescent Rainwater, & @andrewkingc19.bsky.social ✨️🩷✨️

Peter wakes up and realises that the time travel is a dream. Smith suggests we can understand the text to be a time travel comedy with a didactic message. It is a text situated somewhere between Dickens and Wells, taking parts from didacticism and science fiction #VPFAExtremes

To date, Sarah Alexander is the only scholar to pay any critical attention to this novel - so Smith's research is extremely original! #VPFAExtremes

The final paper of the conference is Hayley Smith discussing Thomas Anstey Guthrie's Tourmalin’s Time Cheques as an early time travel narrative #VPFAExtremes

Our final paper of the Fairy Tales and Magical Creatures panel at #VPFAExtremes is Cecelia Rose, presenting 'A Fishy Tail: Edward Burne-Jones’s The Depths of the Sea (1886)'

Discussing the work of Catherine Wells, mountains and alchemism with Emelyne Godfrey #VPFAExtremes

Next we have Marijke Vale, who is discussing the fascination with radium's rejuvenating properties that led it to be known as the “elixir of life” #VPFAExtremes

In the final science and imagination panel, Adam Baldwin is talking about tales of Venus. In these stories, the contemporary imperial assumption that other worlds are there to be conquered is subverted #VPFAExtremes

Such a great keynote. #VPFAExtremes

read the short story here and let us know if you have any thoughts on it: www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/ten-... #VPFAExtremes

in the Third Sex Reading group conference session we were discussing Nebedita Sen's Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island. A very poignant commentary on literal, intellectual, cultural, and literary consumption #VPFAExtremes

On one of our final panels at #VPFAExtremes today – Fairy Tales and Magical Creatures – Silvia Storti is getting us started with '"Proof of Thought and Depth of Feeling": Gender, Power and Empire in Anne Thackeray’s Fairy Tales'

This year's 3rd Sex reading group session @vpfa.bsky.social was om "The Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island" - a remarkable short story that led to really interesting discussion! #vpfaextremes

A brilliant final keynote from @corinnefowler.bsky.social at @vpfa.bsky.social #VPFAextremes. Can't wait to read the book!

Fowler says she finds walking a useful methodology because it allows her to situate herself in the landscape and understand why certain places were valued above others #VPFAExtremes

in a fascinating intersection of labour and colonial history, Ghandi visited Lancashire in 1931 to discuss the impact of the Indian boycott of British goods (particularly cotton) on the textile industry #VPFAExtremes

George Loveless was sent to modern day Tazmania for being a Tolpuddle martyr. He was concerned about the brutality of the colonial regime and wrote that it was a good warning about aristocracy possessing unfettered power in the colonies as they do back home #VPFAExtremes

1 example is Charborough Park, owned by MP Drax. His ancestor went to Barbados and built a sugar empire. The wealth from this & compensation for enslaving people affected locals. A toll road was built meaning local people suddenly had to pay to go in that direction #VPFAExtremes

Take a look at Fowler’s book ‘Our Island Stories: Ten Walks through Rural Britain and its Hidden History of Empire’. She has an opium walk through the Lake District and more. It is a useful way of understanding what our colonial histories in this country are #VPFAExtremes

Now for our final keynote of the conference, Corinne Fowler with her talk 'The Impact of Empire on the Countryside, 1837-1901' #VPFAExtremes

Great to see my fellow #BirkbeckVictorianist @helenaesser.bsky.social in action this morning, talking about #Ouida and spy fiction at the @vpfa.bsky.social conference in Birmingham. With fellow panellists Professor Claudia Capancioni and Dr. Alison Dingle.

Edwardian spy fiction activated the idea of the chivalrous gentleman hero who is loyal to country, class, and kingdom. Ouida sets her spy fiction in the glamorous courtly world of high society and manipulates ideas of powerful men #VPFAExtremes

Ouida anticipates the trope of cosmopolitan clandestine networks. She believed that ‘to the true poet his native land lies wherever what is beautiful can be beloved, or that which is sorrowful needs solace’ #VPFAExtremes