If I'm going to do a steampunkish Victoriana for NaNoWriMo 2014, I'm going to need some Victoriana to modify. The Public Domain Review is an excellent source for such things--mainly primary sources. This is just a linkfest, not a descriptive post, but maybe it will do for a start/reminder. Meanwhile, some Internet Archive links snuck their way in...
Practical Advice/Society:
The London Guide and Stranger’s Safeguard against the Cheats, Swindlers, and Pickpockets (1819)
A History of Mourning (1890)
The Early History of Coffee Houses in England (1893)
Inns and Taverns of Old London (1909)
A Treatise on Adulteration of Food and Culinary Poisons (1820)
Art:
Women Painters of the World: from the time of Caterina Vigri to Rosa Bonheur (1905)
Fashion:
Fancy dresses described or, What to wear at fancy balls, by Ardern Holt; 1887; Debenham & Freebody, Wyman & Sons, London.
Science and ideas:
Redressing the Balance: Levinus Vincent’s Wonder Theatre of Nature
Plates from Robert Thornton’s Temple of Flora (1807) - Illustrations to Linneaus
The Naturalist and the Neurologist: On Charles Darwin and James Crichton-Browne
Was Charles Darwin an Atheist? - a challenge to that belief
Scientific Amusements (1890)
The Curious World of Isaac D’Israeli (1791) - Includes edifying essays on "Virginity" and “Fair-Sex having no Souls,” as well as “The Virgin Mary,” “Protestants,” “Coffee,” and "Transubstantiation" Primary Source
Selections from the Tatler, Spectator and Guardian (1885)
Re-examining ‘the Elephant Man’
The Medical Aspects of Death, and the Medical Aspects of the Human Mind (1852)
Portraits of Patients from Surrey County Asylum (ca.1855)
Just for Fun:
Hand Book of the Carnival, Containing Mardi-Gras, its Ancient and Modern Observance (1874)
The Practical Magician and Ventriloquist’s Guide (1876)
Mythical Monsters (1886)
8.20.2014
Steam Expectations (new idea for 2014?)
Based loosely on Great Expectations, but in a steampunk universe:
A female Pip - lives with her mother and "father"; oldest of 7 siblings. They are poor; she is mistreated by her father, who is not kind to any of the children, but singles out our heroine for particular mistreatment. There are rumors that before her parents were married, her mother was scandalously jilted by the blacksmith (or perhaps vice versa?) - a scarred and cynical man who nevertheless shows grudging interest in our heroine. She daydreams that he is her father, as she was born when her parents had been married for only 6 months, healthy and strong for an early infant. Fed by a wet nurse though others were fed by their mother. She is strong and unconventional--a reader and dreamer as well as a capable cook, governess, housecleaner, and seamstress, she also has inclinations toward natural history (dinosaurs) and a fascination with glass blowing and weaponry. In winter, she can often be found at the forge, though her parents tell her that she will be ruined by keeping low company (what are we if not low? is her response)
A male Estella - the ward of a very wealthy, single eccentric known for having been famously left at the altar by his fiancee. (Fiancee was kidnapped into a flying brothel.) He is also a bitter academic (think Charles F. Muntz in Up) who is doubly shunned because of his theories (something to do with ancient creatures, plate techtonics, or something--must be theoretically falsifiable; maybe human evolution/missing link?) and because of his supposed lack of manliness--that he was abandoned by a woman (is he impotent? and how can someone so unmanly be a scientist?) Has been raised (in a dirigible) with the objective of ruining as many fashionable young women as possible--or of ruining them for society without actually "ruining" them, so as not to tarnish himself. Purity and cruelty go hand-in-hand with this one, but he is also detatched. He should not be too unsympathetic.
The situation - Our heroine finds herself the recipient both of the attentions of our "hero" and of an unexpected education from an undisclosed source. The school is international--the British Empire is well represented. It is based on land because to have young women flying about is not yet considered entirely proper. The education is to be both moral and scientific, but is also to emphasize the power that women have over men. Our heroine is a dreamer, vulnerable to attentions that she has not had. (The education is paid for by the blacksmith's sister, a prostitute, who was the kidnapped fiancee.) Like Pip, she becomes convinced that she is being groomed as a scientist and a bride for her counterpart, and also obsessed with who her benefator is.
More - because she has a handsome allowance, our heroine also tries to help her sisters and her mother, with disastrous consequences.
Still more - Our heroine falls in love with our hero, as he intends. And with the school's guidance, she attempts to seduce/woo while avoiding ruin. But this is not to be. And she realizes it and moves away just as he begins to realize that he is in love with her--or could be. Unlike Pip, she does not wait to be hurt, and she does not crawl home. There may be another love interest, but perhaps better (by which I mean--more unexpected) if not.
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