Dickens, the Brontës, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Author Conan Doyle. The poets Tennyson, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. These are the names we think of when we think of Victorian literature. However, this canon of well-known writers only scratches the surface of the masses of print that were produced in nineteenth-century Britain. Like us, the Victorians read widely in terms of both topic and genre. Travel, memoir, non-fiction, biography, autobiography, history, science, and advice books all were avidly read by the Victorians. And some of the Victorians’ favorite books are bizarre. Below are a few of the more unusual.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation by Robert Chambers (1844)
Figure 69 from the 10th edition of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Although its title may seem esoteric, this anonymously published runaway bestseller was a work written for the general public who may well have little knowledge of scientific theory. Nonetheless, Vestiges draws on a wide range of sciences of the day—evolution, astronomy, geology, physiology, psychology—in order to argue for an explosive origin of the universe and the evolution of humans from apes. These concepts were so controversial that Chambers made frequent reference to a divine creator who set these processes in motion in order to make sure he was not attacking the religious beliefs of the time too directly.
The anonymous publication of Vestiges was a stroke of genius, leading to scores of reviews and constant speculation about the author’s identity, since this might explain whether the references to the divine creator were a ruse to deflect criticism or not. Vestiges was so successful it was published in fourteen different editions amounting to forty thousand copies. Famous readers included Prince Albert, who read it out loud to Queen Victoria; Tennyson; George Eliot; Florence Nightingale and Charles Darwin. Jim Secord, whose book Victorian Sensation traces the reception of Vestiges, writes that Vestiges is ‘as readable as a romance’. Hmm, maybe for the early nineteenth reader . . . I recommend starting with Secord’s book before dipping into Vestiges proper.
London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew (1851)
London Labour and the London Poor
Henry Mayhew spent the 1840s studying and interviewing the poor who lived and worked on London’s streets, including the ‘mudlarks’ who searched for valuable debris on the banks of the polluted Thames, the second-hand street sellers of everything from crockery to bed-ticking to musical instruments, and street performers who swallowed swords, cut silhouettes or organized shows of giants, dwarves and pig-faced ladies. Mayhew was the first writer to approach a study of the poor in a manner meant to be sympathetic but that backed up conclusions with facts and statistics. One of the volumes of London Labour opens with a table of estimated wages of street people, for example.
Mayhew’s sketches of the lives of street people first appeared as stories for the Morning Chronicle and were published in triple-decker book form in 1851 as well as in 1861 with a new statistical fourth volume. Mayhew’s work is considered to be a major influence on Charles Dickens as well as one of the earliest examples of sociology. Though heavily packed with facts and statistics, London Labour is the type of book that you can dip in and out of with short, clearly labelled sections devoted to describing the working and living conditions of each type of street worker. However, novel-lovers will probably appreciate some of Dickens’s fictional representations of street workers such as Oliver Twist and Bleak House a bit more.
On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (1859)
Charles Darwin as an Ape Holds a Mirror Up to Another Ape
In the end, Origin of Species vastly outsold and outlasted Vestiges in importance, but historians believe there was less controversy surrounding the Origin thanks to the debates about Vestiges becoming somewhat old hat by the time the Origin was published. The Origin of Species combined early nineteenth-century theories of population, geology and evolution to formulate the theory of natural selection: shortages of food and other resources would always cause plant and animal populations to compete with each other, leading to the increase of advantageous hereditary traits and extinction of non-advantageous traits. Such specialization would go on for thousands of years, leading to the rise and fall of various different species.
On the Origin of Species was indeed controversial because it undermined the Biblical story of creation, but what really plagued the reception of Origin of Species was the constant accusation that Darwin had suggested that humans descended from apes, an idea that was not actually ever directly stated in the book. Nonetheless, the reviewers bemoaned this idea en masse and parodies pervaded the popular press, most famously in the form of an ape with the head of Charles Darwin himself. Today, the book remains controversial and we only have to look to nonfiction bestselller lists to find contemporary responses to the debate by authors such as Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking.
Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management by Isabella Beeton (1861)
From The Book of Household Management by Mrs Beeton
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Mrs Beeton was a household name for excellence in domestic management by the 1890s. Mrs Beeton’s famous book started its journey to fame in the cookery column of the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, a publication run by her husband. Like a Dickens novel, The Book of Household Management was published in part issue from 1859 before finally being available as a single volume in 1861. In the first year of publication, it sold 60,000 copies and it would go on to be published in many, many more editions, never going out of print up to the present day. Mrs Beeton herself did not live anywhere near long enough to see the full extent of her success, dying of puerperal fever in 1865, regardless of publishers failing to note that she was no longer personally contributing to the publication until well after her death.
The title suggests a range of topics will be covered but, apart from some short early sections on the roles that should be taken by different members of a household, the book itself is almost entirely made up of recipes and cooking advice. Most of these recipes were lifted from other books and Mrs Beeton in fact requested that her Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine readers send recipes in to her for publication. Some historians believe her collections of recipes provide a more authentic picture of period cuisine as a result of being drawn from various sources. The makers of Downton Abbey even relied on Mrs Beeton to make sure the culinary offerings of the great house were authentic.
How I Found Livingstone by Henry Morton Stanley (1872)
This book made the phrase, ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume?’ so famous that it simply has to be included in every account of the two explorers’ first meeting, regardless of the accuracy of the account. Historians like to speculate that Stanley capitalized on the precise phrasing with humorous understatement, since Livingstone was obviously the only stranded white person who could be found in the whole of Tanzania. After all, Stanley was a journalist and he knew how to develop interest in his subject. This is why How I Found Livingstone is a much better read than Livingstone’s toneless African journals.
Livingstone’s story was not only improved with Stanley’s catchy use of language, but also in terms of reputation thanks to his positive account of their joint exploration of Lake Tanganyika. Livingstone’s previous expedition up the Zambezi River had largely been a failure due to the impassable conditions of the river and had led to accusations that he was a poor leader. Stanley’s book therefore did Livingstone’s reputation some good, but Stanley has not been looked on favorably by contemporary readers due to his treatment of Africans. How I Found Livingstone is a suspenseful read, but not for the faint-hearted, giving the typically Victorian attitudes about race. The same might be said for some of the novelists inspired by Stanley, such as Joseph Conrad and Henry Rider Haggard.
Photo Credits
Skeleton of Mammoth. Figure 69 from the 10th edition of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation published anonymously by Robert Chambers (1853). Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Charles Robert Darwin, as an ape, holds a mirror up to another ape. Colour lithograph by [F.], The London Sketch Book. Wellcome Library, London. Reproduced under a Creative Commons License.
View of a Dust Yard. From London Labour and the London Poor (1851). Wellcome Library, London. Reproduced under a Creative Commons License.
A Selection of Dessert Dishes. From The Book of Household Management (1861). Wellcome Library, London. Reproduced under a Creative Commons License.