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More than any other Victorian-era writer, Tennyson has seemed the embodiment of his age, both to his contemporaries and to modern readers.

In a previous video I introduced the oldest voices that can still be heard through recordings made on Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville’s phonautograph and Thomas Edison’s early tinfoil phonograph. This time, we look at how efforts to promote Edison’s new “perfected” phonograph in Britain led to the preservation of the voices of many famous Victorians - from poets and composers like Robert Browning and Arthur Sullivan, to major political figures like William Gladstone. We will also see how his rivals finally succeeded in recording the voice of Queen Victoria.

Jack the Ripper's murder spree claimed the lives of countless women A researcher has claimed to have definitively identified Jack the Ripper through DNA evidence, sparking calls for an official inquest into the infamous murders. Russell Edwards says he has obtained a "100 per cent DNA match" linking the killer to Aaron Kosminski, a Polish barber who emigrated to London. "It's very difficult to put into words the elation I felt when I saw the 100 per cent DNA match," Edwards said. "This brings closure and it's a form of justice for the descendants," he added. Russell Edwards says he...

Researchers from Lipscomb University have found that brightly colored books dating back to the Victorian era contain dyes with toxic and poisonous chemicals that could harm readers. The dyes originate from the colorful inks used in the books’ type or illustrations. While previous research has examined the poisonous substances found in the pages of these books, the researchers plan to present a new technique, one not previously used to study books, at the 2024 American Chemical Society (ACS) fall meeting in Denver, Colorado. “These old books with toxic dyes may be in universities, public libraries and private collections,” Abigail Hoermann,...

Harry and Meghan's plan to make a Great Expectations prequel about Miss Havisham is not new and could be more 'voyeuristic misery' than feminist TV hit, a world-leading Dickens expert told MailOnline today. Dr Emily Bell, an English professor and editor of The Dickensian, the journal of the prestigious Dickens Fellowship, told MailOnline that Miss Havisham's backstory was already explored in the 2015 series Dickensian and Ronald Frame's novel 'Havisham' in 2012.

Taking the real historic phenomena of fasting girls who claimed they could survive without food that were reported throughout Ireland after the Great Irish Famine, an adaptation of a novel “The Wonder” is available on Netflix. The brief plot summary is an English nurse, Mrs. Elizabeth Wright, played by Florence Pugh, is hired to watch over a fasting girl, Anna O’Donnell, in Ireland. Mrs. Wright was with Florence Nightingale at Scutari during the Crimea War. An Irish reporter for the Daily Telegraph, Mr. William Bryne, shows up at the village to do his own investigating. The story has the typical...

His adaptation of A Christmas Carol portrayed Ebenezer Scrooge as a molested schoolboy who grew up to force Tiny Tim’s mother into prostitution. So perhaps it’s no surprise that Steven Knight’s BBC1 version of Great Expectations turns Miss Havisham, played by Olivia Colman, into an opium addict and shows an ecstatic Mr Pumblechook being spanked in a dingy bedroom. He has also included references to the British Empire’s connections to the slave trade, with several characters hammering home an anti-colonial message.

The BBC has injected a strong anti-colonial message into its adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic novel Great Expectations, it has been revealed. Written by Peaky Blinders creator Stephen Knight, the beloved novel has been given a new twist, referencing the evils of Empire which were not present in the original Victorian book. In one scene, criminal Magwitch, one of the central characters, describes the British Empire as having been 'built on the lies of privileged white men', The Telegraph reports.

After a long hiatus from the first season of this steampunk series set in an alternative Late Victorian, set in the 1870s/1880s based on the ladies' fashions, world where humans live with sentient creatures from our mythology, for example, faeries, and magic is real, Amazon has been releasing episodes from season two. This review is based on a viewing of episodes one and two. I have noticed two big tonal changes from season one. Perhaps the showrunner or writer read my Freeper review of season one. So far there have been no gratuitous sex scenes. The second is the use...

BBC and FX have released the first full trailer for Steven Knight's forthcoming adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. Olivia Colman, 49, leads a star-studded cast in the eerie and twisted two-minute teaser as she transforms into jilted once-bride-to-be Miss Havisham. Dunkirk actor Fionn Whitehead, 25, plays orphan Pip in the new production opposite Line Of Duty actress Shalom Brune-Franklin, 28, as his love interest Estella.

Olivia Colman looks unrecognisable with white hair and yellow teeth in the first teaser trailer for BBC's upcoming adaptation of Great Expectations. The actress, 49, who plays Miss Havisham in the Charles Dickens classic, welcomes a young Pip (Tom Sweet) to Satis House for the first time in the footage.

The author of feminist novel Little Women may have been transgender or identified as non-binary, an article by a trans New York Times writer has claimed. Louisa May Alcott, who penned the semi-autobiographical book in 1868, likely did not identify as a woman, according to the president of the Louisa May Alcott Society.

As a bonus for being a T-Mobile customer, I receive Netflix for free. I hardly use it as I am not much interested in the Netflix produced original content. But I saw a trailer for a new series titled “1899”. I guess I am a sucker of four funnel liners filled with pretty women in Late Victorian-Edwardian clothing. I watched the first episode. I did enjoy the opening episode and one was thrown right into the story. The overall feel was coldness thanks to the cinematography and score. The score I could best describe as Steampunk Industrial. One thing I...

Immigrants on a steamship travelling from London to New York get caught up in a mysterious riddle after finding a second vessel adrift on the open sea.

One of Thomas Hardy's most popular novels now comes with a trigger warning after students were told it contains 'upsetting scenes' about the 'cruelty of nature' and 'rural life'. 'Far from the Madding Crowd', which depicts the brutal reality of Victorian rural life, has been slapped with a content warning by the University of Warwick.

If you think your folks give you a hard time for not marrying, try being a woman in the Victorian era. For single ladies of those times, public ridicule was the norm. Luckily, many of them grew thick skin because of it and wouldn’t succumb to jokes about their relationship status. Instead, they fired back in a witty fashion. While studying an 1889 edition of Tit-Bits Magazine, historian Dr. Bob Nicholson, who runs a blog called The Digital Victorianist, came across an interesting article — the publishers offered a prize to the spinster who could provide the best answer to...

They have been celebrated as classics of English literature for more than 150 years, enjoyed by generations of children as young as eight. But university students have now been given a 'trigger warning' that Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Charles Dickens's Great Expectations both contain passages they might find 'distressing'. Critics last night described the cautions given to students at Salford University as 'absurd'. Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said it was ridiculous that adults 'have to be protected from the stories that generations of children have been able to cope with without being damaged'.

A new adaptation of Jules Verne classic Around The World In 80 Days has been dismissed as 'woke nonsense' by furious BBC license payers. The eight-part adaptation starring David Tennant as globetrotting Phileas Fogg launched on Boxing Day, but a series of socially conscious tweaks to the legendary tale left viewers choking on their turkey sandwiches. Two notable departures from Verne's original 1872 text sees Passepartout, Fogg's loyal valet, played by a black actor - French star Ibrahim Koma - while Detective Fix also gets a modern-day makeover.

For her first Great Dickens Christmas Fair in 2015, LaToya Tooles fashioned a gown out of dollar-store hula hoops and a tablecloth. A friend had invited her to the annual event, a festive re-creation of 19th century London inspired by the works of Charles Dickens that has been running in San Francisco for nearly 40 years. Almost as soon as she arrived at the antique winter wonderland, she joined the revelers on Fezziwig’s dance floor and didn’t stop waltzing for hours. “I met some of my greatest friends at the Dickens Fair,” says Tooles, who went on to join the...

Sky has released the first images from its upcoming hotly anticipated period drama The Gilded Age. The HBO series, written by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, is set to arrive on Sky Atlantic in January. An all star cast - including Cynthia Nixon, 55, Carrie Coon, 40, Taissa Farmiga, 27, and Christine Baranski, 69 and Meryl Streep's daughter Louisa Jacobson, 30,- will feature in the series set in 1882 during the American Gilded Age, a period of huge economic change.