As The Old Curiosity Shop appeared in instalments, Charles Dickens was inundated with letters from readers, all begging him not to kill off Little Nell. Queen Victoria found Oliver Twist so “excessively interesting” that she pressed it on the prime minister, Lord Melbourne. It was this response, from high to
Edward Burne-Jones, Fiona MacCarthy’s “last” Pre-Raphaelite, might just be the most maddeningly elusive artist Britain has ever produced. He was a painter of the imagination, of the might-have-been, of the never-was, all dreamy maidens and sleeping beauties. And yet he was also a painter born into the Industrial Revolution, in
History is filled with stories that enthralled newspaper readers for weeks or months at a time, that were the currency of thought and speech for everyone and then suddenly vanished. Excavating these episodes—excavating the right episode—can bring to life a period, creating a microcosm for exploring attitudes and ideas of
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