Books

Victorian Cities
The Porto Alegre Alternative: Direct Democracy in Action (IIRE S.)
Inside the UDA: Volunteers and Violence
Capitalism and Its Economics: A Critical History
Reinventing India: Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and Popular Democracy
The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas
Soap Opera
Contemporary Spanish Culture: Television, Fashion, Art and Film
Mary Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley
Blair's War
Green Gold
The Terracotta Warriors: The Secret Codes of the Emperor's Army
The Confident Hope of a Miracle: The Real History of the Spanish Armada
Swastika Over Paris: Fate of the French Jews
After Daybreak:: The Liberation of Belsen, 1945
Madness Visible
Four Sisters of Hofei
Prague Pictures: Portrait of a City
Two Babushkas
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: The Mississippi Civil Rights Movement and Its Consequences
Portrait of Viet Nam
Holy Anorexia
Napoleon and His Collaborators: The Making of a Dictatorship
Ceramic Roofware (Shire Album S.)
Roman Artillery (Shire Archaeology S.)

Victorian London: The Tale of a City 1840--1870

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Most readable book on the subject of Victorian England
Queen Victoria's Legacy
The Smells, sounds, society and daily life of Victorian London explained in readable prose
in depth look at how London became a modern city

Victorian London: The Tale of a City 1840--1870
Liza Picard
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Dr. Johnson's London: Coffee-Houses and Climbing Boys, Medicine, Toothpaste and Gin, Poverty and Press-Gangs, Freakshows and Female Education
Elizabeth's London: Everyday Life in Elizabethan London
Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England
The London Underworld in the Victorian Period: Authentic First-Person Accounts by Beggars, Thieves and Prostitutes
Victorian London Street Life in Historic Photographs

ASIN: 0312366590
Release Date: 2007-02-20

Customer Reviews:

Most readable book on the subject of Victorian England.......2007-03-22

I've been reading about the Victorians for a number of years. I tend to consume subjects, reading book and book, until I've satisfied my curiosity. Picard's Victorian London is the best written of them all and answered my most pressing questions concerning the Victorians. Her order is logical and her descriptions memorable. I had previously read a lot of descriptions of the Crystal Pavilion but only Picard's book walked me through the exhibition. The book also helped me realize I no longer wish for a time machine to transport me back to a simpler time. I think the Thames is just lovely now and it sounds as if it was rather nasty 150 years ago. I highly recommend the book.

Queen Victoria's Legacy.......2006-09-06

I stumbled on Liza Picard's books quite by chance. After looking at the publishing date in some of the books it is apparent some of them have been around for several years. I am now recommending them to anyone and everyone and I am so glad I stumbled across the first one I read on a rainy afternoon, lonely and far away from home. I have now read them all.

As soon as you start to read the book it becomes apparent that the author is passionate about her subject and wants the reader to enjoy the reading experience as much as she has in the writing of it. Liza Picard presents an enthralling picture of how life in London in the Victorian era was really lived. The Victorian era covers a large span in years and was a time when the world was changing more quickly than at any period in its history. A magical, mystical period in the history of a great City.

Liza Picard was born in 1927. She read law and qualified as a barrister but did not practice. Quite where she gleaned all this information from I am not sure. That it was a labour of love is obvious to anyone who reads her books and I for one am grateful.

The Smells, sounds, society and daily life of Victorian London explained in readable prose.......2006-07-16

Liza Pickard is a barrister with a mighty pen. She has authored several books about London. These Include: Life in
Elizabethan London: Restoration London; Dr. Johnson's London
and now this fourth book in the series.
Picard has done her homework: her reading of first person diaries and sources; periodical articles from the age. She includes
excellent secondary sources giving the reader an accurate view of
life when Victoria reigned the British Empire. The little Queen
ruled for 64 years from 1837 to her death in 1901.
Picard's chapters deal with such topics as:
daily life for the poor, middle class and wealthy;
the smells and the sights of London;
male and female fashions;
church life and the judicial system of Victorian England;
Amusements from opera strolling in the park to riding a horse
on Rotten Row.
Household appliances and the chores of childrearing;
Disease and Death traditions. Medicine made progress.
the growth of the railroads and road construction;
the Great Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851;
Education expanding its opportunities through Ragged Schools
and church schools.
There are many other topics but you get the idea. The book is
not thrilling but it is essential to a student of English history or literature who wants to sample life for the average
Londoner living from 1840-1870.

in depth look at how London became a modern city .......2006-03-08

This is an in depth look at how London became a modern city through the early Victorian transition. The insight starts with the key to any city the revision of the sewage system to eliminate the health problems and the odor that permeated much of the city from cesspits. As fascinating is the role of women, which differs depending on social class; unlike romance novels, the author furbishes a powerful look at the growing factory and municipal working class, those below the poverty line, and the servant class too. In these cases diaries and the writings of chroniclers like Jane Carlyle and Thomas Mayhew provide insight. This is a terrific look at three decades of transformation of one of the world's greatest cities. Readers who enjoyed the recently issued LONDON'S THAMES: THE RIVER THAT SHAPED A CITY AND ITS HISTORY as well as the author's previous captivating London historicals (see ELIZABETH'S LONDON and RESTORATION LONDON) will appreciate this deep look at the historical era of transformation of an urban center that never slept in the middle of the nineteenth century and still does not.

Harriet Klausner

Victorian City and Country Houses: Plans and Details

Average customer rating:

Complete
An excellent resource for lovers of Victorian architecture
My life long affair with Victorian Archietecture

Victorian City and Country Houses: Plans and Details
Geo E. Woodward
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

Victorian Domestic Architectural Plans and Details: 734 Scale Drawings of Doorways, Windows, Staircases, Moldings, Cornices, and Other Elements
Victorian House Designs in Authentic Full Color: 75 Plates from the "Scientific American--Architects and Builders Edition," 1885-1894
100 Victorian Architectural Designs for Houses and Other Buildings (Dover Pictorial Archives)
Late Victorian Houses and Cottages: Floor Plans and Illustrations for 40 House Designs
Bicknell's Victorian Buildings

ASIN: 0486290808

Book Description

Detailed volume includes 100 front and side elevations, floor plans for five city houses, a country house with a French roof, a summer house, various cottages, more.

Customer Reviews:

Complete.......2007-06-11

From Basement to Attic this book gives the reader full coverage on the structures it covers. All floors and all sides Plus.

A must have for any interested in the homes of this period.

No library of the subject of Victorian architecture is complete with out it.

An excellent resource for lovers of Victorian architecture.......2001-06-26

"Victorian City and Country Houses: Plans and Details," by Geo. E. Woodward, is a visually rich window into the architecture of the late 19th century. This book is an unabridged reprint of a volume originally published in 1877 under the title "Woodward's National Architect, Vol. II."

This book contains floor plans and elevations (both front and side) for both row houses and stand-alone houses. One fascinating aspect of this book is the inclusion of plans for the basements and attics, in addition to those for the primary floors. Also included are designs for gazebos and other structures.

You will see many of your favorite Victorian era architectural elements in this book: towers, covered porches, mansard roofs, and more. A series of detail pages focus on some specific decorative elements: dormer windows, balusters, finials, roof cresting, etc. Overall, an excellent book.

My life long affair with Victorian Archietecture.......2000-06-18

has led me to this facinating and compelling book. Although I'm certain there are simmilar books out on the market, this was the one that I first picked up. Prior to this time, I had been looking at home planning magazines in a vain attempt for needed inspiration. Even if you do not own a home or are planning in the near future, this book is too good to pass up.

City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London (Women in Culture and Society Series)

Average customer rating:

One of my favorite plasure-reading books...
Sexual Danger
Unusual but excellent history of gender and violence
Fabulous blend of Foucauldian theory and empiricist history
A necessity for anyone interested in the era.

City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London (Women in Culture and Society Series)
Judith R. Walkowitz
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State
The London Underworld in the Victorian Period: Authentic First-Person Accounts by Beggars, Thieves and Prostitutes
Victorian Babylon: People, Streets and Images in Nineteenth-Century London
Making of the English Working Class
Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture

ASIN: 0226871460

Book Description

From tabloid exposes of child prostitution to the grisly
tales of Jack the Ripper, narratives of sexual danger
pulsated through Victorian London. Expertly blending social
history and cultural criticism, Judith Walkowitz shows how
these narratives reveal the complex dramas of power,
politics, and sexuality that were being played out in late
nineteenth-century Britain, and how they influenced the
language of politics, journalism, and fiction.

Victorian London was a world where long-standing traditions
of class and gender were challenged by a range of public
spectacles, mass media scandals, new commercial spaces, and a
proliferation of new sexual categories and identities. In
the midst of this changing culture, women of many classes
challenged the traditional privileges of elite males and
asserted their presence in the public domain.

An important catalyst in this conflict, argues Walkowitz, was
W. T. Stead's widely read 1885 article about child
prostitution. Capitalizing on the uproar caused by the piece
and the volatile political climate of the time, women spoke
of sexual danger, articulating their own grievances against
men, inserting themselves into the public discussion of sex
to an unprecedented extent, and gaining new entree to public
spaces and journalistic practices. The ultimate
manifestation of class anxiety and gender antagonism came in
1888 with the tabloid tales of Jack the Ripper. In between,
there were quotidien stories of sexual possibility and urban
adventure, and Walkowitz examines them all, showing how women
were not simply figures in the imaginary landscape of male
spectators, but also central actors in the stories of
metropolotin life that reverberated in courtrooms, learned
journals, drawing rooms, street corners, and in the letters
columns of the daily press.

A model of cultural history, this ambitious book will
stimulate and enlighten readers across a broad range of
interests.

Customer Reviews:

One of my favorite plasure-reading books..........2005-03-05

I really enjoyed reading this spectacularly written book.

Sexual Danger.......2002-01-05

This is primarily a history of gender. And armed with the theme of sexual danger, Walkowitz is able to explore not just late-Victorian women, but late-Victorian relationships between men and women.

Walkowitz begins with the urban strollers of the 1880's, the flaneurs. Prior to this period, the primary urban female found in London is the prostitute. Following commercial development in late-Victorian London there is an influx of "shopping ladies" and the "working women" who serve them in "the new feminized world of department stores." (p.24)

Next, Walkowitz discusses the findings of Charles Booth's study of London poverty. Significant is the area of London known as Whitechapel where gender roles were somewhat reversed.

In chapter 2, Walkowitz further explores the characters inhabiting the urban terrain of London. There are "gents" or "swells", women in music halls(both performing and in the audience), shopping ladies, charity workers, and the Glorified Spinsters. These "actors" were constantly exploring new boundaries while re-inventing their roles.

In the chapter "Science and Seance", Walkowitz gives us the tale of Mrs. Weldon who makes the great leap from being nearly committed(falsely) to a lunatic asylum, to becoming a fixure on Pears Soap advertisements. Certainly, Mrs. Weldon's role reversal was socially significant, and due to her "succesful negotiation of urban spaces and cultural styles" and "her willingnes to make a spectacle of herself and to allow her image to be refashioned, circulated, and ultimately discarded by a fickle marketplace." (p.189)

The significance of Jack the Ripper is the effect the murders had on men as well as women, including boys and girls. The Ripper's legacy is the crystallization of "sexual fears and hostilities" and the creation of a "common vocabulary of male violence against women." (pp.227-228)

These gender roles all represent the theme of sexual danger because they are changing. Roles are being reversed or re-invented. Barriers, whether physical or social, are being probed.

Unusual but excellent history of gender and violence.......2001-12-06

Judith Walkowitz delivers a very engaging history of gender violence, prostitution, and good old Jack the Ripper. Her style is more reminiscent of a novel or short story collection than an academic history, and that works in the narrative's favor. One finds it very easy to go along with her argument, even though it does have some holes in it. The style she adopts makes it easy for her to squeeze events into her hypothesis, and it sometimes feels forced, especially in her repeated attempts to relate everything to "melodrama." The book is well researched, which is most obvious in her discussion of the men and women's club and Georgina Weldon's struggle against the male establishment. Overall, a feminist history that never becomes militant, and a piece of academic work that is accessible to a wider audience than merely women's studies faculty members across the U.S.

Fabulous blend of Foucauldian theory and empiricist history.......1998-02-27

Walkowitz masterfully unravels the mysteries of Foucault's periodization of the proliferation of gender discources. Backed by solid empirical evidence, we see competing discourses on gender, class, and race evolve as different groups fight to stake out access to discursive power. Read Foucault, then read this, for an epiphanous moment that unlocks the mysteries of technologies of power!

A necessity for anyone interested in the era........1995-11-16

This book was critical for me as I wrote a term paper. A wide range of subjects is covered, and each numerous topics of interest are addressed. The text is easy to read- not trivial of negligible, but accessable to almost everyone

Walking the Victorian Streets: Women, Representation, and the City

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Walking the Victorian Streets: Women, Representation, and the City
Deborah Epstein Nord
Manufacturer: Cornell University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

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Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State

ASIN: 0801482917

Popular Culture and Performance in the Victorian City

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Peter Bailey's fiasco

Popular Culture and Performance in the Victorian City
Peter Bailey
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 052157417X

Book Description

Lively and innovative, these well-illustrated essays on the making of the Victorian entertainment industry get inside the popular experience of the pub, music-hall, theater and comic press. In this new leisure world, audiences learned how to be performers themselves, adopting roles and styles appropriate to the unsettling dynamics of the modern city. A major advance in understanding how popular culture actually works, this is a model of the successful integration of the theory and practice of social history and cultural studies.

Customer Reviews:

Peter Bailey's fiasco.......2001-03-23

Book of semi-historical signifance. Normal everyday reader will find book boring and "long" winded. Good primary sources but not a book with a "bite." No new information given to change this person's mind about the Victorian Era in England. Bailey's thesis is lost in the mire of words.

Victorian Cities (Classics in Urban History, No 2)

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Victorian Cities (Classics in Urban History, No 2)
Asa Briggs
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

British History, 1815-1906 (The Short Oxford History of the Modern World)
Victorian Feminism 1850-1900
Victorian People: A Reassessment of Persons and Themes, 1851-67
The Irish Question: 2 Centuries of Conflict
Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England

ASIN: 0520079221

Book Description

A comparative study in urban history, Victorian Cities examines the 19th-century history of four developing cities in England in a period of rapid growth, with chapters on London and Melbourne and references to Los Angeles and Chicago as well.

Building Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City
Average customer rating:

Transforming England's "Dark Satanic Mills"
Extraordinary!!!!!!!
Well-researched, but flawed account of Victorian cities

Building Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City
Tristram Hunt
Manufacturer: Metropolitan Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The English Civil War: Papists, Gentlewomen, Soldiers, and Witchfinders in the Birth of Modern Britain
Victorian London: The Tale of a City 1840--1870
Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies in American Culture
After the Victorians: The Decline of Britain in the World
Planning Paris before Haussmann

ASIN: 0805080260
Release Date: 2005-12-27

Book Description

From Manchester’s deadly cotton works to London’s literary salons, a brilliant exploration of how the Victorians created the modern city

Since Charles Dickens first described Coketown in Hard Times, the nineteenth-century city, born of the industrial revolution, has been a byword for deprivation, pollution, and criminality. Yet, as historian Tristram Hunt argues in this powerful new history, the Coketowns of the 1800s were far more than a monstrous landscape of factories and tenements. By 1851, more than half of Britain’s population lived in cities, and even as these pioneers confronted a frightening new way of life, they produced an urban flowering that would influence the shape of cities for generations to come.
Drawing on diaries, newspapers, and classic works of fiction, Hunt shows how the Victorians translated their energy and ambition into realizing an astonishingly grand vision of the utopian city on a hill—the new Jerusalem. He surveys the great civic creations, from town halls to city squares, sidewalks, and even sewers, to reveal a story of middle-class power and prosperity and the liberating mission of city life. Vowing to emulate the city-states of Renaissance Italy, the Victorians worked to turn even the smokestacks of Manchester and Birmingham into sites of freedom and art. And they succeeded—until twentieth-century decline transformed wealthy metropolises into dangerous inner cities.
An original history of proud cities and confident citizens, Building Jerusalem depicts an unrivaled era that produced one of the great urban civilizations of Western history.

Customer Reviews:

Transforming England's "Dark Satanic Mills".......2006-02-01

Britain was the first country on Earth to witness the Industrial Revolution -- and my, oh, my was it ugly! Millions of economically displaced families moved from the countryside and Ireland to work in the burgeoning cotton, metal and coal industries during the early 19th century. Cities like Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds were completely overwhelmed by the human influx, becoming breeding places for mass poverty and the disease that followed. The living conditions were nothing less than murderous -- as bad as anything in the Third World today.

In this college-level book, Tristram Hunt chronicles how British society responded to the crisis. "Building Jerusalem" is an intellectual history of the ideas that transformed squalor-bound urban areas into a new organizational model based on civic pride and public works. We learn how the Romantic vision of medieval chivalry (as retold in popular novels like "Ivanhoe") influenced the ground-level urban activists -- along with powerful forms of Christian compassion and nationalism.

The Victorian urban reform movement succeeded in many areas, but fell short in others. Ultimately, the coming of the 20th century undermined many of the core ideas that sustained the movement and led to a new focus on suburban development instead.

Hunt's writing is lively, particularly in the first 200 pages, and his research is impeccable. Unfortunately, the second half of the book drags a bit as he delves too deeply into the biographies of certain key characters, like John Ruskin. I would have split this book into two different volumes, the first from 1770 to about 1880, the second volume from 1880 to 2000. The photos are valuable, but we need more maps, illustrations and graphics to understand the true nature of this earth-shaking transformation. Bottom line: Worth reading, but could be better organized.

Extraordinary!!!!!!!.......2006-01-20

Historians must take an ideological stance or they become but poor reporters of facts. Hunt's research and approach is brilliant. Whether you agree with him on his interpretation of the facts is your business. Great history is written with great passion. This book is a very fine example of the rare art of the historian.

Well-researched, but flawed account of Victorian cities.......2004-08-14

Hunt, a university lecturer and government adviser, has written a considerable work, based on years of research, but flawed by its pro-Labour, anti-working class perspective. He quotes John Prescott, "We are all middle class" - true enough of Labour Ministers and their cronies.

But the world's first industries and the world's first industrial cities were built by the world's first working class. In this book, trade unions are almost invisible - a walk-on part when Manchester Town Hall opened in 1878, a demand for better conditions for Glasgow's tramworkers, but Hunt cannot see the working class's role in creating industry, only `restrictive labour practices'.

He approves the Victorian economist James Mill's arrogant and idealist claim that the capitalist class contains `the heads that invent, and the hands that execute' and `the men who in fact think for the rest of the world'. The reactionary diatribes of Carlyle, Pugin and Ruskin, and the bourgeois triumphalism of a Macaulay, were equally idealist.

Too often, Victorian capitalists had prestige projects built, at the cost of urban development, putting palaces before people. Self-styled merchant princes, seeing themselves as the new Medici, romanced `Saxon self-government' and smugly rejected planning for public health.

The Victorian ruling class saw London as the imperial city, with its irredeemable natives. Hunt sees people's moves to the suburbs and to garden cities as wilful failures to solve London's problems, and joins Betjeman, Orwell, Williams-Ellis and Priestley in snobbish hatred of the suburbs, despite acknowledging that many people do want to live there.

Hunt calls for a restoration of local democracy, noting that in the 1890s, Londoners elected 12,000 of their fellow-citizens to run hospitals, schools and transport; now 36,000 quangocrats decide for us. Successive governments' rate capping, surcharging and cash limits have weakened the `innovative local government and civic pride' that Hunt celebrates, yet he ignores completely the biggest current threat to local (and national) democracy - Labour's EU-driven regionalisation policy.

He applauds the knowledge economy - though isn't all productive work knowledge-based? But we also need steel, ships, vehicles and clothes, which we should be producing ourselves, instead of relying on imported goods.

Victorian London: The Life of a City 1840 - 1870

Average customer rating:

Every aspect of London social history that you can imagine
Another Delightful View of London History
Thank you, Mrs. Picard !

Victorian London: The Life of a City 1840 - 1870
Liza Picard
Manufacturer: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Similar Items:

Elizabeth's London: Everyday Life in Elizabethan London
Dr. Johnson's London: Coffee-Houses and Climbing Boys, Medicine, Toothpaste and Gin, Poverty and Press-Gangs, Freakshows and Female Education
Victorian London: The Tale of a City 1840--1870
Restoration London
Restoration London: From Poverty to Pets, from Medicine to Magic, from Slang to Sex, from Wallpaper to Women's Rights

ASIN: 0297847333

Customer Reviews:

Every aspect of London social history that you can imagine.......2006-07-09

I've read almost every book in print on London social history, so I thought no author could hold my attention on this topic, yet Liza Picard's book was a delight to read, as she put a new spin on well-tread ground.

The author covers every conceivable aspect: the infrastructure, daily lives of all social classes, and every other topic you can think of. Liza Picard puts a special emphasis on the perspective of Victorian women. This was an era when the only way a woman could have a reasonable life was to marry someone who could support her; women defined "a good marriage" far more generously than they do today. The options open to an unmarried woman - even a well-educated woman - were incredibly bleak.

Every chapter provides unexpected tidbits of historical trivia, such as the fact that London homes had a mail delivery every hour for twelve hours per day, which also gives a clue about the typical workday. In this book, no leaf has been left unturned, yet the prose flows very smoothly in a tightly organized structure. The 23 chapter headings are: Smells [sewers], river, streets, railways, buildings, practicalities, destitution, working class, middle class, upper class, domestic service, houses, food, clothes, health, amusements, The Great Exhibition, The Crystal Palace, education, women, crimes, religion, and death. There are 45 illustrations, mostly period drawings, some in color.

Ms. Picard is 79 at this time, and the biographical blurb says this completes her series of four books on London social history. Surely she isn't thinking of retirement? There is plenty of scope for a fifth book and beyond.

Another Delightful View of London History.......2006-04-03

This is the fourth book the author has written on the history of London. The others dealt with Elizabethan, Restoration, and Dr. Johnson's London. Much as its predecessors, this volume on early Victorian London is a treasure and a delight to read. While the author focuses upon some of the physical aspects of the city (i.e., rivers, streets, buildings), the book really is much more concerned with the daily life of the city during the (1840-1870) period, and that is its great strength. Therefore, there are chapters for example on poverty, the class system, domestic service (a hard way to go), houses and gardens, food, clothing (surprisingly interesting), health, the Crystal Palace exhibition, education, religion and death. The author's research is extensive and she really knows the city. Her discussion is very informal and breezy to read--almost as if one were sitting across from her at tea time. The abundant illustrations add greatly to the narrative. This is apparently the finale of her series--this is too bad, for volumes on the late Victorian and Edwardian periods would have been of great value as well.

Thank you, Mrs. Picard !.......2005-09-11

Long awaited,finally published,immediately ordered-I LOVE IT !
As with Picard's three earlier works,the amount of total immersion in the period,that the reader can experience,is a quality hallmark.
I can,without too much trouble,read textbooks on these subjects,but,as I am not professinally engaged in history-why should I?
Picard's approach is a lot more fun,her fine british humour,her understatements,but also her undisputable knowledge and perfectionism,make this a worthy pillar in her hitherto published work.
It is pure,undiluted JOY !

Average customer rating:

Dreadful writing a translation from some alien tongue?
Ho-Hum Historical mystery
Reprinted from the Aug 2006 "The Historical Novels Review"
needs improvement
This is how historical mysteries should be done.

City for Ransom
Robert W. Walker
Manufacturer: Avon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Similar Items:

Absolute Instinct (Jessica Coran Novels)
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Killer Instinct
PSI: Blue (Psychic Sensory Investigation Thriller) (PSI; Psychic Sensory Investigation Thriller)

ASIN: 0060739959
Release Date: 2005-12-27

Book Description

Welcome to Chicago, 1893 -- where new wonders are being unveiled . . . and a monster feeds on the unsuspecting.

Tens of thousands are flocking to a bustling, wind-swept metropolis in the middle of America for the great Exposition of 1893 -- to see the future and to ride Mr. Ferris's remarkable wheel. A city of hope and hardship has caught the attention of the world -- and a maniacal killer has made it his hunting ground.

Inspector Alastair Ransom carries the burden of the dead on his shoulders. But a demon far worse than Ransom's own is loose -- a bloodthirsty killer who preys on Chicago's most vulnerable citizens, his grisly handiwork masked by the glitter and frenzy of the World's Fair. But a haunted detective doesn't realize how desperate his search has become -- for each passing hour brings the slayer closer to his next intended victim: Alastair Ransom.

Customer Reviews:

Dreadful writing a translation from some alien tongue?.......2007-01-02

I typically enjoy historical mysteries, but the writing in this book was so horribly awful that I was unable to finish it, even though it was the only un-read book in the house (imagine you're hungry and bite into your last commestible only to find it is a brussels sprout and you get the idea). You remember in Men In Black, how the ship-wrecked alien "slipped into" the farmer's body and animated it in an almost totally unconvincing manner? That's what the writing in this book is like. A dry recitation of facts about the period would have been more appealing than this attempt to "bring them to life" with the help of completely unsympathetic characters and a dreadfully stilted prose that isn't modern, isn't period, is just awful. Even the wording of the dedication makes one wince. The only use I can see for this book is to serve as a text in a "how not to write" class.

Ho-Hum Historical mystery.......2006-10-11

Being a self-admitted sucker for historical mysteries and this one taking place in my hometown of Chicago no less, I had high hopes for this book. Set in the background of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, this book chronicles a gruesome serial killer and the "troubled" Chicago police detective, (haunted by the Haymarket riot/bombing seven years earlier where seven of his peers were killed and he himself injured), tasked to solve this case. The book is full of historical tidbits including 19th century forensic/criminal investigation techniques, Chicago geography, personalities and politics of the time and goings on around the fair itself. (I'll leave it to others to point out specific errors but I noted a few.) The book has a cast of potentially interesting characters, (some fictional and some historical), including a police chief of questionable intelligence/morals, the junior cops working the case with our protagonist, a police photographer with artistic aspirations, a medical doctor/coroner ahead of his time and a phrenologist called in to assist "scientifically" in the case. Unfortunately the connections that tie these characters together defy belief. On top of that, the story line/plot lurches in fits and starts, jumping from the past and present (1893 present) with scene transitions reminiscent of old Batman episodes, "Meanwhile back at ...", with dialog at times that is stilted and clumsy - characters finish each other's sentences, talk out loud to themselves and get up on soapboxes to rant on a variety of topics, (womens' rights, the justice system, the future of scientific endeavors and the cruelty of life in general), seemingly at the drop of a hat. Just to add to the confusion, 20th Century vernacular is sprinkled throughout, which is somewhat jarring. All this adds up to a fairly disappointing read - at least to this reader - and I don't see myself actively seeking out other books by this author.

Reprinted from the Aug 2006 "The Historical Novels Review".......2006-08-26

Inspector Alastair Ransom is faced with a diabolical and ruthless killer who is stalking the streets of Chicago during the Great Exposition of 1893. As the crimes continue, the inspector finds himself not only under great pressure to stop them, but uncovers disturbing personal connections to the murderer. Worse, Ransom is plagued by a enigmatic little man who, with the blessings of the Police Chief, intrudes upon his investigation. He can't decide if this strange character is charlatan or scientist, doctor or pioneering criminologist. His investigation becomes twofold: not only must he apprehend the killer, but he is compelled to discover the secret of this man, a truth which turns out to be one that he could scarcely imagine.

Described in the manner of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Ransom is nevertheless no Sherlock. Hard boiled, physically and emotionally scarred, the inspector has as many of his own demons to fight as criminals on the streets, and those streets are mean indeed. Fans of Erik Larson's highly successful and in many ways similar "The Devil in the White City" will recognize them, and the author portrays those streets in all their grittiness. Characters are likewise drawn sharply, and provide much of the interest in this book. The plot does not fall short either. Complex and multifaceted, it challenges the reader. While some might find this story at times too outrageous, the novel succeeds both as a mystery and an interesting read. It is an intelligent and absorbing work, which, although written in the somewhat elaborate style of those times, is ultimately satisfying.

needs improvement.......2006-07-21

Apart from the needlessly large number of typos ("Undo" for "undue," "wit" for "whit," are just a few of the more egregious examples) and such, there are just too many factual errors and problems with the story. It tries to be true to the era, 1893 Chicago, but the dialogue alternates between attempts at the period and all-too-modern phraseology. Are we to believe they said things like "student ID cards" in 1893? And references to the novels of HG Wells, who didn't begin his writing career until two years after the novel takes place, are plainly wrong. And there are the references to firearms, laboriously attempting to sound factual but again, just wrong. The author has someone shot with a Sharps 44 revolver, for example, but the Sharps 44 was a rifle. There are enough erors in the firearms references alone to make the entire novel's attempt at historicity to be suspect.

Give it a pass, don't waste your time on this novel.

This is how historical mysteries should be done........2006-06-29

Walker has upped the bar for solid historical mysteries. With twists and turns galore, this is one story that earns its keep in the genre. Ransom is a character as smooth as Doyle's Holmes, as bold as Stout's Wolfe, and as vivid as Hammett's Charles. City for Ransom puts the reader right where they should be, in the thick of things. Outstanding!

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A look back

The growth of Victorian London
Donald J Olsen
Manufacturer: Holmes & Meier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Customer Reviews:

A look back.......2003-08-01

London has been a city of importance for two thousand years -- first important as a Roman outpost, then as a centre of commerce and culture for southern England during Britain's multi-kingdom, multiple-invasion phase, then growing after the Norman conquest to be the centre of government, culture, language and economy. London grew to be the capital of an Empire upon which the sun never set -- this Empire's ascendancy was during the Victorian era, so it comes as no surprise that it was during this phase that London began its trend of explosive growth that has made it the world city that it is today.

Olsen's text traces this growth from the early nineteenth century to the early twentieth century in terms of urban planning (or, more often, lack thereof), architectural issues, preservation versus modernisation and improvement concerns, quality of life issues, and city necessities such as transporation, communication, sanitation, etc.

Even in the year 1800, various parts of London that are now considered central were in fact some distance from London proper. Kensington Palace was some distance from London; now it is a regular tourist attraction in the heart of London. The now-inappropriately-named St. Martins-in-the-Fields reminds the Londoner and visitor alike that this was once a pastoral setting, rather than a bustling intersection.

Perhaps the greatest antagonism going on in Victorian times was the pull-and-push of the older Georgian city (itself a relatively modern place, given the overall history of London) versus the free-enterprise and fast-paced growth (requiring equally fast-paced demolitions of older structures) of the Victorians. This was a period of rapid growth of the urban middle classes -- it was perhaps at this point in history in Britain that more people lived in cities than in the countryside for the first time, a trend that has never reversed.

At issue were many aspects of life: major accomplishments included the mass transit system, including the London Underground, as a common feature of life; major problems included the development of London in private sections that had little or know communications, transport or otherwise, with the developers of other areas. Looking at a map of London to this day will show a mass of areas that illustrate planning within themselves, but not in concert with their neighbouring areas. Street names were not common -- one can still to this day walk down a street without turning and find that the name changes as one goes along as many as dozen times.

The middle classes demanded more services and more creature comforts in their homes and businesses, while still requiring a sizeable working 'under'-class for those things that had not yet become mechanised and efficient -- horse and carriage was still common through the end of the Victorian era, so occupations such as street cleaners, gas lamp lighters, etc. were still quite common.

In his final chapter, Olsen lists many of the problems -- cholera, overcrowding, slums, dirt, grime -- those things that threatened at various times to cause London to topple in on itself as a great weight, but demonstrates that most of those evils have in fact been mitigated if not entirely eliminated. What the Victorians have left to the modern world is a beautiful city with workable and adaptable structures, a social fabric diverse and accepting (generally speaking) of change and growth, and an environment which can endure much.

Olsen includes a good number of maps and illustrations, including photographs of some of the best and the worst of nineteenth century London. Olsen's writing is interesting, tends toward detail a great deal, and is very thorough in presentation. The conclusions might be questioned, but they are well-supported in the documentation, and require study and inquiry to address. For those interested in the history of London, this is a very good book.

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