John Woolf (2)

If you know anything about Stephen Fry, you know what to expect when listening to Stephen Fry’s Victorian Secrets. It is a very clever and entertaining look at many of the myths regarding Victorian society. With his droll British humor, Mr. Fry covers everything from sex and pornography to murder and the adoption of modern detective skills. He manages to educate while making fun of modern-day assumptions regarding this historical period. Never lewd, lascivious, or graphic, he presents each show more topic with discretion and grace and with tongue firmly in cheek. If only all history could be so enjoyable. show less

Black Victorians: Hidden in History is a well written, thoroughly researched book looking at the lives of just some of the black people who were part of Victorian Britain. The authors are an African-American woman and a white male English historian who has worked in academia and television here.

After introductory sections by each author and two chapters establishing the context of a British monarchy ruling a growing empire, of trade and industrial development at home and beyond, this book show more focuses on a selection of Black Victorians in various roles and different parts of society. Migration, including Black people, was always part of Britain's story.

The book is divided into four sections on Struggle and Survival, Church and State, The Arts and Church and Fighting for Freedom. Each section has four chapters, named after and focusing on
twelve men and five women including a bishop, an aristocrat, a scientist, a composer, an actor, a circus performer, a nurse, a soldier and a seaman, several campaigners and others. There are also sadder stories such as that of a man who died in a lunatic asylum. Of those mentioned, I had previously heard of Samuel Taylor-Coleridge and Ida B Wells, but was interested to learn more about both.

Some of the book's "characters" were born here and some came here from other countries. Some studied and trained here and were then sent out as part of an imperial project, including men who joined the Army and Navy, a Bishop and several missionaries (men and women). Many of them married and had children here. While the focus is on a selection of individuals whose life stories were interesting but also well documented in paper records, the authors stress that these are just a few people among a much larger number, that the aim is to establish the extent, range and significance of black presence in British and world history. Studying the contribution of these few individuals does not mean that they were exceptional in their existence, achievements and experiences.

The book is written in a fairly accessible style, with the research backed up by a substantial bibliography and over 30 pages of endnotes. 22 black and white illustrations are distributed through the text on ordinary paper, including reproductions from paintings, posters and photographs.

This is a good contribution to some of the people and events too long neglected by "official" history, and I would like to read more by both authors, and find John Woolf's TV documentary work. show less

Black Victorians: Hidden in History, by Keshia N Abraham and John Woolf, is an enlightening and accessible work that recovers from history important Blacks from the Victorian period.

The opening section nicely contextualizes just how many Blacks, as well as members of other marginalized groups, were erased or ignored as the histories were written. In the blink of an eye a person could go from having a work dedicated to them to being removed from the dedication and future association with the show more person. While race may not have been the only factor in a few of these, it no doubt played a large role in how effectively these people were forgotten.

No matter how many of these names are new to you, each profile is interesting and will likely contain information you didn't know. Having these together in one volume helps to illustrate the degree to which, even in places that were relatively progressive for the time, there was a distinct difference in how Blacks were remembered.

While not academic in the writing, there are a lot of very useful notes (especially for those wanting to learn more) and an extensive bibliography. The body of the book is wonderful, but I think the value lies in how many readers and researchers will use this as a springboard into future research and recovery efforts. And the bibliography included here will be a great resource for them.

Highly recommended for both the casual reader who wants a better grasp of the history that gets overlooked in school as well as the person who might want to do more research, whether formally or not.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less

20% of why I bought this was a mild interest in 'Victorian Secrets', but 80% was because Stephen Fry was narrating it.

Neither disappointed. If you don't like Stephen Fry - and I don't know how that would be possible - you won't like this audiobook. If you do, you'll probably enjoy it even if some of the stuff he discusses is old hat.

The recording is broken up into 12 episodes that each cover a different facet of Victorian culture. It's debatable whether or not a lot of these are "secrets" show more in the strictest sense of the word; more that some of these are things the average modern day person might not have known about the era, or had ever given any thought to (sewer pirates anyone?). It seems this was created specifically for Audible by Audible, but it sounds much like the BBC Radio Shows in format - each episode in introduced, and there are excepts read by other authors/scholars about their work as it pertains to the episode's subject. I was chuffed to not only recognise some of them, but to have already read their work.

My personal prize at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box (or my Kinder surprise for the younger demographic) was the last episode: it was about Sherlock Holmes - squeeee! He talks about the mystery surrounding aspects of Holmes' life, but even better, the episode includes a recording of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself discussing Sherlock's creation. Bliss, with a hint of Scottish burr. show less