Lauded by critics, How to Be a Victorian is an enchanting manual for the insatiably curious, the "the cheapest time-travel machine you'll find" (NPR). Readers have fallen in love with Ruth Goodman, an historian who believes in getting her hands dirty. Drawing on her own firsthand adventures living in re-created Victorian conditions, Goodman serves as our bustling guide to nineteenth-century life. Proceeding from daybreak to bedtime, this charming, illustrative work "imagines the Victorians as intrepid survivors" (New Republic) of the most perennially fascinating era of British history. From lacing into a corset after a round of calisthenics to slipping opium to the little ones, Goodman's account of Victorian life "makes you feel as if you could pass as a native" (The New Yorker).
Written with such passion that one cannot help but be carried along ... Will fascinate and inform anyone who is in any way interested in Victorian ways of life -- Dr Ian Mortimer, author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England
A delightful read ... allows us to see how the Victorians lived from day to day. A triumph -- Judith Flanders, author of The Victorian City
Shocking, exciting, wonderful -- Clive Anderson BBC Radio 4
I absolutely love this book. Exuberant, absorbing ... there's scarcely a detail of Victorian life Ruth has not tried -- A N Wilson Mail on Sunday
Author
About Ruth Goodman
Popular Historian Ruth Goodman is an expert in nineteenth-century social and domestic history and has presented a number of BBC television series, including Victorian Farm and Edwardian Farm. She spent ten years as a historical advisor to the Royal Shakespeare Company's Globe Theatre and also appeared in the BBC2 programme 'Tales from the Banquet Hall'. She is a regular presenter on The One Show and has co-authored three books, including the Number One Bestseller Victorian Farm.
