This page is updated regularly. Please refresh the screen to see the latest news.
March 2026
arch has brought welcome hints of spring, the completion of one of last month's projects, and an abundance of new work to our website.
The completed project is Dennis T. Lanigan's section on the Pre-Raphaelite artist, Charles Fairfax Murray. As well as painting literary and classical subjects, Murray was a talented portraitist, and he painted one of the most striking portraits of his lifetime friend William Morris (shown on the right here), looking quite different from the rotund and tousle-haired "Topsy" of later years. Many thanks as usual to Scott Thomas Buckle for his input here.
Still with the Pre-Raphaelites, our partnership with the Pre-Raphaelite Society has led to our sharing several of the articles from last year's Pre-Raphaelite Society Review. The four selected by our Senior Editor, Simon Cooke, are now online: Sheilagh Quaile's "A Zardozi Shawl in William Holman Hunt’s The Children’s Holiday"; Caroline E. Giddis Macia's "An Elegy in Clay: Mary Seton Watts and Mortuary Design"; Laure Nermel's "‘How terribly did I long to be a man so as to paint there’: The making of the working female Pre-Raphaelite"; and Rocío Moyano Rejano's "Textualizing and Screening Pre-Raphaelite Paintings in Lisa Klein's and Claire McCarthy’s Ophelia."
While working with Simon on these, JB introduced a new sculptor, the very talented but rather unfortunate Irishman, John Hughes, part of ongoing work about sculptors who went to Australia, or whose statues and reliefs were sent there. This has been inspired by our Contributing Editor Philip Allingham's trip to New South Wales. Writing up the Victorian-era architecture and sculpture there has brought home to us both how much we lost when gifted artists emigrated: look at this little statue of a chimney-sweep in Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens, for example, by the sculptor Charles Francis Summers, whose father came from Somerset. Another very skilled stone-carver was Edinburgh-born Walter McGill, who created this intricately carved replica of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in the same gardens, thought to be the finest of the many such replicas all over the world.
Among the large number of other works that Philip photographed were John Hughes's statue of Queen Victoria outside Sydney's Queen Victoria Building; relief panels by Percival Ball, Gilbert Bayes, Feodora Gleichen and Sir William Reid Dick for the outside of the Art Gallery of New South Wales; and Bayses's pair of equestrian statues in the gallery's forecourt: all examples of works that had to be shipped across the world to their new home. Additional photographs taken by Philip found their way into earlier discussions of Australian history.
Meanwhile, after Simon finished his work on the Pre-Raphaelite Society Review essays, he was able to complete a long and wide-ranging essay of his own, "Illustrating Science Romance: An Introduction," showing how early examples of speculative fiction inspired graphic imagery as the genre developed in the later part of the era. This brings in some notable illustrators who are quite new to us, especially Claude Allin Shepperson and Fred Jane, the latter best remembered for the compilation, Jane's Fighting Ships. Their illustrations are unnervingly effective, and often not just scary, but scarily prophetic.
Prophetic in another way was the novelist and poet George Meredith's recognition of gender fluidity. In her third contribution to our section on him, Sylvia Hornsby looks at the expression of androgyny in his novels, picking out those protagonists who challenge sexual stereotypes, and are challenged in their turn as they reject the conventional roles in which Victorian society sought to imprison them. The campaign to restore Meredith's reputation continues!
We have another comprehensive and informative book review to offer now, too: Taylor Tomko delves into Sandhya Shetty's Imperial Pharmakon: Writing and Medicine in the Long Nineteenth Century (2025), praising the unusually wide range of genres that Shetty explores "to either advocate for or to critique Western imperial medicine in the long (long!) nineteenth century." We're proud to say that Taylor was once an editorial assistant on our website. Special thanks are due here to our Managing Editor, Diane Josefowicz, for dealing with our much-expanded book review programme.
Correspondence, etc: Many thanks also to the Pugin Society for giving us a great write-up in their latest newsletter: "This is a wonderful site, which is constantly updated, with new contributions constantly appearing in a large number of different areas of Victorian studies. Part of its original aim was to make interdisciplinary links, so that it is possible to move easily, for example, from architecture and painting to the great literature of the period, or to issues of science or music or questions of faith and much more." It was pleasing too that the Society put the spotlight on our images: "A particular advantage of the site is the very extensive number of images, of all sorts, that can be looked at in detail and enlarged for closer examination." Praise is always welcome, and we'd like to return the compliment(s) by pointing out that the Pugin Society has a splendid website of its own, with considerable visual appeal, offering a full programme of events and beautifully produced publications: http://www.thepuginsociety.co.uk/ Do check it out!
February 2026
f variety really is the spice of life, our website has plenty to enliven these winter days, with a range of new contributions in different areas.
Our own team has been especially busy, with our Managing Editor Diane Josefowicz leading the field by guiding us expertly through Martin Hewitt's recent book, Darwinism's Generations: The Reception of Darwinian Evolution in Britain, 1859-1909. The concept of a generation and the nature of historical change are among the ideas that come under scrutiny here, so there is much in the review to interest specialist and non-specialist alike. Readers will want to turn to the book itself to find out more, and to see whether they agree that Hewitt could usefully have enlarged on the reception of Darwin's ideas beyond Britain. A proposal for a future volume, perhaps?
Meanwhile, JB has been working with some of that variety of contributions mentioned at the beginning. Tim Willasey-Wilsey, a former contributing editor who still takes a keen interest in the site, photographed the monuments of the Guildhall in the City of London for us, while attending a function there: of the national heroes thus honoured, we now have Pitt the Elder, Pitt the Younger, Nelson and Wellington. Michael Riley, who has also been in touch in previous years, sent in photographs of the premises of Hughes & Mullins, the royal photographers who operated on the Isle of Wight and recorded many of the royal family's events there, from a a family gathering in the grounds of Osborne House, to that popular pastime, the tableau vivant.
Before escaping from winter for a few weeks in the antipodes, Philip Allingham, our Contributing Editor from Canada, finished updating some of the earliest work on the website, including an informative piece on Dickens's tour of Philadelphia's "solitary prison," the Eastern Penitentiary, during his first visit to America. It made a great impact on him. Hard to believe, but this first went online in 2004! Very soon after arriving in New South Wales, Philip began sharing with us some glimpses of early architecture here, starting with a delightful set of photographs of the Tacking Point Lighthouse by James Barrett, who rose from humble beginnings in Arbroath in Scotland to leave a lasting legacy as Colonial Architect on the other side of the world. Next came Trial Bay Gaol, introducing prison reformer Harold Maclean, whose family also went out from Scotland, and who left an important mark of another kind on New South Wales. Philip's photograph of Australia's first Prime Minister, Sir Edmund Barton, then prompted a piece about the Federation of Australia, in which Barton played such a significant part.
Much new work is in progress in the visual arts: Dennis T. Lanigan has opened a new section on Charles Fairfax Murray, whose Pre-Raphaelite works have been unfairly neglected. We now have a biography of him, and several of his paintings, but more are in the pipeline. One particularly eye-catching work so far is The Concert. Turning to a more familiar name, we have a review of a new book on John Singer Sargent, by Emily Eells, Isabelle Gadoin and Charlotte Ribeyrol: Sargent. Le beau monde et son revers. A landmark study for the French audience, it is discussed for us by Laurent Bury. We really are fortunate in our art historians: Pamela Gerrish Nunn has also reviewed a new book for us, this time in the design section: Lynn Hulse's May Morris Designs: "The Essence and Soul of Beautiful Embroidery.
Most intriguingly, Randall Wallace, a new contributor, sent in information and details about a large, bound collection of hundreds of mostly Victorian illustrations, with significant links to the publishing house of Richard Bentley, and Dickens's early publications. So far, Randall has provided an introduction and taken a close look at two sketches by Robert Seymour that indicate the approach Dickens was taking to the Pickwick Papers project. Randall and JB then worked together to look at seven illustrations by George Cruikshank for Oliver Twist and consider their possible source — a fascinating exercise. Two more of Seymour's published Sketches followed, both with print studies containing rather curious doodles: "A Man coming"! and "Delicacy, my love, delicacy!
Correspondence, etc: Many thanks to Professor François Grosjean for alerting us to his work on the "Rugeley Poisoner" William Palmer (we have a piece about him here) and what he rightly calls a "poignant story: that of a trusting young solicitor in the 1850s, who was drawn into the scandal that surrounded the murderer — a connection that ultimately poisoned his own life. We're grateful as well to the Pugin Society, for its generous praise for our website in their spring newsletter. It was also kind of Professor Hugh Goddard, Honorary Professorial Fellow in the Alwaleed Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World, at the University of Edinburgh, to advise on how we might fill a gap in our section on religion, where there is, as yet, no mention of the Muslims in Victorian Britain — although the first mosque over here was founded in 1889, in Liverpool. Thanks are also due to Doug Martyn, who spotted a misspelled name in the book design section that ran through all too many items. We're always very grateful for such notifications.
January 2026
arm New Year Greetings from the Victorian Web! As Dickens puts it at the end of his Christmas book, The Chimes, "May the New Year be a happy one to you, happy to many more whose happiness depends on you!" Our Managing Editor, Diane Josefowicz, has now sent 2025 down into the archives: we trust that you'll find much in our ever-expanding website to interest and inspire you as 2026 unfolds.
Two good sources of inspiration, both overseen by Diane as well, are our conference notices/calls for papers, and our book reviews. Note especially that the deadline for abstracts for the Thomas Hardy Conference in Dorset this summer was extended to 25 January. It does pay to keep your eyes open for such extensions. As for reviews, here's one not to be missed: Christian Gallichio discusses The Nineteenth-Century Novel and the Pre-Cinematic Imagination, by Alberto Gabriele. This develops the idea that optical toys and tools like the zoetrope or the microscope helped propel the novel form towards modernism — a critical approach that produces some strikingly original analyses, for instance, in Gabriele's final chapter, of George Eliot's Middlemarch.
Technological advance affected all spheres of production, some more obviously than others. For example, JB brought in a contemporary account of the maritime engineer, Andrew Laing, whose work on turbines powered the Mauretania early in the next century, and helped turn Newcastle into a powerhouse of shipbuilding. The achievements of Laing and other local shipbuilders would be commemorated in some of A.K. Nicholson's dynamic stained glass in Newcastle Cathedral. Later in the month, JB added Count Gleichen's terracotta bust of Mary Seacole, the Jamaican nurse now celebrated for her work in the Crimea. Florence Nightingale's reputation has fallen somewhat as Seacole's has risen, and JB also took a look at the issues involved here.
Feeling a bit flat after the holidays? Our Senior Editor, Simon Cooke, has the answer: his new illustrated essay examines Max Beerbohm's irreverent take on some of the most popular artists of the Victorian period, "Mocking the Pre-Raphaelites: The Comic Art of Max Beerbohm." You may be familiar with some of the individual cartoons, but this round-up definitely has a cumulative effect!
Meanwhile, fittingly for this time of year (and for his own love of acting), our Contributing Editor for Canada, Philip Allingham, has been revising and adding to his work on theatrical adaptations of Dickens's works. The list of these has grown, and one important addition, recently finalised, is "Films and Plays from A Tale of Two Cities." With the panto season ending, Philip turned back to his more usual work, on the Dickens illustrators. Of special interest here is his updated note on Phiz's wrapper design for the monthly serialisation of A Tale of Two Cities. Updating is essential in an area where scholarship is so active, and most recently he has been improving his scans and commentaries on Fred Barnard's illustrations of key moments in the same novel.
As so often, one of our most active and valued contributors, Dennis T. Lanigan, had been hard at work promoting one of the less fêted Pre-Raphaelites, one whose kindly personality would have been impossible for Max Beerbohm to lampoon: Thomas Matthews Rooke, whose paintings can sometimes ambush you with their colour and vision. Herod's Feast is just one example. Dennis also contributed a drawing by the sculptor Thomas Woolner, and a commentary on this unexecuted design for the Cawnpore (Kanpur) Memorial in India.
Despite a recent emphasis on updating existing pages, we now have 136,654 documents and images as compared with 132,386 just over a year ago (December 2024).
Correspondence: A particular pleasure over the festive season was some well-informed input from Michael Riley on the background and sequence of construction at Queen Victoria's home on the Isle of Wight, Osborne House. Stuart Orr also brought to our attention some interesting research on the Julius Beer Mausoleum at Highgate Cemetery, which overturned some attributions in its listing text and other trusted sources. Another useful comment, this time on the admission of women students to the Victorian art school, Cary's (previously known as Sass's), came from Dr. Gilles Weyns. We welcome all such corrections, updates and additional information.
Last modified 20 March 2026