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Articles on Victorian literature

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An online exhibition includes access to personal newspaper advertisements from 1860 to 1879 transcribed from archives. (Jacquelyn Sundberg and Nathalie Cooke)

How encrypted Victorian newspaper personal ads shaped fiction like Sherlock and Enola Holmes

Personal ads of ‘the Agony Column’ were full of longing, tragedy and profound misfortune. Intrigue they generated has had an enduring effect on literature and film.
January is named after the two-faced Roman god Janus, and the Victorians understood this has long been a season of looking backward as much as forward, and not just in search of lessons. (Shutterstock)

How 19th-century Victorians’ wellness resolutions were about self-help — and playful ritual fun

The 1859 book ‘Self-Help’ by Scottish journalist and physician Samuel Smiles was written in bite-sized pieces reminiscent of today’s wellness and lifestyle New Year tips.
The Brontë family, by Branwell, who painted over himself after realising the ‘composition was too cramped’. National Portrait Gallery/Wikimedia

How incest became part of the Brontë family story

Since the 1930s, Wuthering Heights has been used to claim the Brontë family had an incestuous secret.

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