It is my great pleasure to host an extract of Charmian Kenner’s new book Revolutionary Partners: Sarah Andrews and British Campaigners for Latin American Independence. Charmian Kenner sets the scene: Naomi’s blog about Thomas Cochrane and Kitty Barnes told the story of a daring Scottish naval captain and his young bride, who eloped in 1812. […]
Contraceptives in the late 19th century
What choices were available to women in the late 19th century?
Who lived in Park Lane (the cheap end)?
WHAT DO YOU think when you hear the words Park Lane? Do think Oooooh posh? After all, Park Lane, is Mayfair, once home to millionaires, celebritiesand aristocrats. The money is still there, of course, but now Park Lane is mostly hotels, luxury car showrooms and casinos.
Mr Giovanelli, the cancan and the demise of Highbury Barn
In my WIP (work in progress, or more accurately WISP, work in slow progress) some of my characters go to Highbury Barn in north London and witness some lewd behaviour…
“A Distant Memory”
I recently rediscovered this short story, which I wrote as English homework on 1 November 1969, when I was eleven. Miss Thomas gave it an A minus minus and a “Quite good”…
Eugène Appert, who photoshopped the Paris Commune
DEEP IN THE stacks archives at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France is a small fat photograph album, barely eleven and a half centimetres tall. It has been made for a specific purpose: to hold cartes de visite, the palm-sized photographic ‘calling cards’ that were popular in the latter part of the nineteenth century…
