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Affinity
by Sarah Waters

ISBN 1573228737 (1-57322-873-7)
Softcover, Riverhead Books

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Book summary:
Affinity is a tale of power and possession that Henry James himself might admire. In her first novel, Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters explored secrets and longing--capping off this lesbian romp with a utopian-socialist vision. Her intricate follow-up is just as sensual but infinitely darker, its moral more difficult to descry. Its stylistic and psychological rewards, however, are visible at every turn, the author's persuasive imagination matched by her gift for storytelling.
In late September 1874, Margaret Prior makes her way through the pentagons of London's Millbank Prison, a place of fearful symmetry and endless corridors. This plain woman on the verge of 30 has come to comfort those behind bars, several of whom Waters brings to instant, sad life. And our Lady Visitor plans to take her role dead seriously, having recovered from two years of nervous indolence in her family's Chelsea house. One person, however, makes her job a passion. Opening an inspection slit (or "eye" as these devices are known), Margaret hears "a perfect sigh, like a sigh in a story." Peering inward, she's confronted by the most erotic of visions--a woman turned toward the sun, caressing her cheek with a forbidden violet: "As I watched, she put the flower to her lips, and breathed upon it, and the purple of the petals gave a quiver and seemed to glow..."
Selina Dawes may indeed have the face of a Crivelli angel, but this medium is in for fraud and assault, her last session having gone very badly indeed. Suffice it to say that the first full encounter between these two very different women is enthralling. "You think spiritualism a kind of fancy," Selina riddles. "Doesn't it seem to you, now you are here, that anything might be real, since Millbank is?" And soon enough Margaret receives several viable signs of the supernatural: a locket disappears from her room, flowers mysteriously appear, and her dazzling friend knows everything about her. Strangest of all, Selina seems to love her.
As Margaret records her weekly prison forays, her own past comes into focus, notably her plans to travel to Italy with her first love (who is now her sister-in-law). But her current journal, she convinces herself, is to be very different from her last one, which "took as long to burn as human hearts, they say, do take." Meanwhile, Waters offers a narrative two-for-one, placing Margaret's diary cheek by jowl with Selina's chronicle of her pre-Millbank existence. This dispassionate, staccato record initially suggests that we can separate truth from desire. Or can we? What Waters's haunting creation leaves us with is a more painful reality--that knowledge and belief are entirely different things. --Kerry Fried [via]
More editions of Affinity:
- Affinity: ISBN 1573221562 (1-57322-156-2)
  Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
- Affinity: ISBN 1573228737 (1-57322-873-7)
  Softcover, Riverhead Books
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Bleak House
by Charles Dickens, Tatiana M. Holway

ISBN 1593083114 (1-59308-311-4)
Softcover, Sterling Pub Co Inc

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Book summary:
Bleak House is a satirical look at the Byzantine legal system in London as it consumes the minds and talents of the greedy and nearly destroys the lives of innocents--a contemporary tale indeed. Dickens's tale takes us from the foggy dank streets of London and the maze of the Inns of Court to the peaceful countryside of England. Likewise, the characters run from murderous villains to virtuous girls, from a devoted lover to a "fallen woman," all of whom are affected by a legal suit in which there will, of course, be no winner. The first-person narrative related by the orphan Esther is particularly sweet. The articulate reading by the acclaimed British actor Paul Scofield, whose distinctive broad English accent lends just the right degree of sonority and humor to the text, brings out the color in this classic social commentary disguised as a Victorian drama. However, to abridge Dickens is, well, a Dickensian task, the results of which make for a story in which the author's convoluted plot lines and twists of fate play out in what seems to be a fast-forward format. Listeners must pay close attention in order to keep up with the multiple narratives and cast of curious characters, including the memorable Inspector Bucket and Mr. Guppy. Fortunately, the publisher provides a partial list of characters on the inside jacket. (Running time: 3 hours; 2 cassettes) [via]
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Bleak House
by Peter Ackroyd

ISBN 074930765X (0-7493-0765-X)
Softcover, Heinemann

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More editions of Bleak House:
- Bleak House: ISBN 074930765X (0-7493-0765-X)
  Softcover, Heinemann
Bram Stoker's Dracula
by Bram Stoker

ISBN 0671009877 (0-671-00987-7)
Softcover, Monarch Notes

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More editions of Bram Stoker's Dracula:
- Bram Stoker's Dracula: ISBN 0671009877 (0-671-00987-7)
  Softcover, Monarch Notes
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Bram Stoker's Dracula
by Jan Needle, Gary Blythe

ISBN 0763625086 (0-7636-2508-6)
Hardcover, Candlewick Pr

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Book summary:
Not for the faint of heart! Award-winning artist Gary Blythe brilliantly captures the eerie mood of Bram Stoker's uneasy tale, expertly edited for today's reader.

Can there be a more terrifying tale than this? The story of the notorious vampire Count Dracula, lord of the undead, who rises from his coffin at night to suck the blood of the living is, undoubtedly, the stuff of nightmares. A lunatic asylum, a bleak Transylvanian castle, an ancient cemetary . . . these are the dark backgrounds to the even darker deeds portrayed in this most bloodcurdling of tales.

Narrated from several viewpoints, DRACULA is a complex story that many know, but few have actually read. Jan Needle's newly edited version makes the gripping events accessible to the twenty-first reader without losing the incomparably chilling atmosphere of Bram Stoker's original novel. [via]
More editions of Bram Stoker's Dracula:
- Bram Stoker's Dracula: ISBN 0763625086 (0-7636-2508-6)
  Hardcover, Candlewick Pr
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Classics of Horror: Dracula/Frankenstein/2 Books in 1
by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Bram Stoker

ISBN 0681411635 (0-681-41163-5)
Hardcover, Longmeadow Pr

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- Classics of Horror: Dracula/Frankenstein/2 Books in 1: ISBN 0681411635 (0-681-41163-5)
  Hardcover, Longmeadow Pr
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The Crimson Petal and the White
by Michel Faber

ISBN 1841953237 (1-84195-323-7)
Hardcover, Canongate

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Book summary:
Although it's billed as "the first great 19th-century novel of the 21st century," The Crimson Petal and the White is anything but Victorian. It's the story of a well-read London prostitute named Sugar, who spends her free hours composing a violent, pornographic screed against men. Michel Faber's dazzling second novel dares to go where George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss and the works of Charles Dickens could not. We learn about the positions and orifices that Sugar and her clients favour, about her lingering skin condition, and about the suspect ingredients of her prophylactic douches. Still, Sugar believes she can make a better life for herself.
When she is taken up by a wealthy man, the perfumer William Rackham, her wings are clipped and she must balance financial security against the obvious servitude of her position. The physical risks and hardships of Sugar's life (and the even harder "honest" life she would have led as a factory worker) contrast--yet not entirely--with the medical mistreatment of her benefactor's wife, Agnes, and beautifully underscore Faber's emphasis on class and sexual politics.
In theme and treatment, this is a novel that Virginia Woolf might have written, had she been born 70 years later. The language, however, is Faber's own--brisk and elastic--and, after an awkward opening, the plethora of detail he offers (costume, food, manners, cheap stage performances, the London streets) slides effortlessly into his forward-moving sentences. When Agnes goes mad, for instance, "she sings on and on, while the house is discreetly dusted all around her and, in the concealed and subterranean kitchen, a naked duck, limp and faintly steaming, spreads its pimpled legs on a draining board." Despite its 800-plus pages, The Crimson Petal and the White turns out to be a quick read, since it is truly impossible to put down. --Regina Marler, Amazon.com [via]
More editions of The Crimson Petal and the White:
- The Crimson Petal and the White: ISBN 1841953237 (1-84195-323-7)
  Hardcover, Canongate
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The Difference Engine
by Bruce Sterling, William Gibson

ISBN 055329461X (0-553-29461-X)
Softcover, Bantam Books

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Book summary:
A collaborative novel from the premier cyberpunk authors, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Part detective story, part historical thriller, The Difference Engine takes us not forward but back, to an imagined 1885: the Industrial Revolution is in full and inexorable swing, powered by steam-driven, cybernetic engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine, and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time. [via]
More editions of The Difference Engine:
- The Difference Engine: ISBN 055329461X (0-553-29461-X)
  Softcover, Bantam Books
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Dracula
by Bram Stoker, Glennis Byron

ISBN 1551111365 (1-55111-136-5)
Softcover, Broadview Pr

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Book summary:
Dracula, by Bram Stoker, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:
New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars
Biographies of the authors
Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
Footnotes and endnotes
Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
Comments by other famous authors
Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations
Bibliographies for further reading
Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate
All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influencesbiographical, historical, and literaryto enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.
Count Dracula has inspired countless movies, books, and plays. But few, if any, have been fully faithful to Bram Stoker's original, best-selling novel of mystery and horror, love and death, sin and redemption. Dracula chronicles the vampire's journey from Transylvania to the nighttime streets of London. There, he searches for the blood of strong men and beautiful women while his enemies plot to rid the world of his frightful power.

Today's critics see Dracula as a virtual textbook on Victorian repression of the erotic and fear of female sexuality. In it, Stoker created a new word for terror, a new myth to feed our nightmares, and a character who will outlive us all.

Brooke Allen is a book critic whose work has appeared in numerous publications including The Atlantic Monthly, The New Criterion, The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, and The Hudson Review. A collection of her essays, Twentieth-Century Attitudes, will be published in 2003.
[via]
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Dracula
by Steven P. Jones

ISBN 0944735479 (0-944735-47-9)
Softcover, Heroes World

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- Dracula: ISBN 0944735479 (0-944735-47-9)
  Softcover, Heroes World
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Dracula
by Tim Wynne-Jones, Bram Stoker, Laszlo Gal

ISBN 1550139002 (1-55013-900-2)
Hardcover, Key Porter Kids

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Book summary:
After discovering the double identity of the wealthy Transylvanian nobleman, Count Dracula, a small group of people vow to rid the world of the evil vampire. [via]
More editions of Dracula:
- Dracula: ISBN 1550139002 (1-55013-900-2)
  Hardcover, Key Porter Kids
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The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana
by Jess Nevins

ISBN 1932265155 (1-932265-15-5)
Hardcover, MonkeyBrain

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Book summary:
This enormous volume is the first comprehensive encyclopedia of fantastic literature of the nineteenth century. From detective fiction to historical novels, from well-known authors like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, to Russian newspaper serials and Chinese martial arts novels, THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FANTASTIC VICTORIANA is a truly exhaustive look at every aspect of fantastic literature in the days of Queen Victoria. Readers of science fiction and fantasy will be surprised to find here the roots of genres thought to be strictly contemporary, and students of literature will be amazed at the breadth and scope of writings produced in the Victoriana era. This is an invaluable reference, and truly one-of-a-kind. [via]
More editions of The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana:
- The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana: ISBN 1932265155 (1-932265-15-5)
  Hardcover, MonkeyBrain
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Fingersmith
by Sarah Waters

ISBN 1573229725 (1-57322-972-5)
Softcover, Riverhead Books

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From the author of the New York Times Notable Book Tipping the Velvet and the award-winning Affinity: a spellbinding, twisting tale of a great swindle, of fortunes and hearts won and lost, set in Victorian London among a family of thieves.

Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a "baby farmer," who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby's household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves-fingersmiths-for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home.

One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives-Gentleman, a somewhat elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud's vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be left to live out her days in a mental hospital. With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways. . . . But no one and nothing is as it seems in this > Dickensian novel of thrills and surprises.

The New York Times Book Review has called Sarah Waters a writer of "consummate skill" and The Seattle Times has praised her work as "gripping, astute fiction that feeds the mind and the senses." Fingersmith marks a major leap forward in this young and brilliant career. [via]
More editions of Fingersmith:
- Fingersmith: ISBN 1573222038 (1-57322-203-8)
  Hardcover, Riverhead Books
- Fingersmith: ISBN 1573229725 (1-57322-972-5)
  Softcover, Riverhead Books
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From Hell
by Alan Moore

ISBN 1880325071 (1-880325-07-1)
Softcover, Borderlands Pr

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Book summary:
The mad, shaggy genius of the comics world dips deeply into the well of history and pulls up a cup filled with blood in From Hell. Alan Moore did a couple of Ph.D.'s worth of research into the Whitechapel murders for this copiously annotated collection of the independently published series. The web of facts, opinion, hearsay, and imaginative invention draws the reader in from the first page. Eddie Campbell's scratchy ink drawings evoke a dark and dirty Victorian London and help to humanize characters that have been caricatured into obscurity for decades. Moore, having decided that the evidence best fits the theory of a Masonic conspiracy to cover up a scandal involving Victoria's grandson, goes to work telling the story with relish from the point of view of the victims, the chief inspector, and the killer--the Queen's physician. His characterization is just as vibrant as Campbell's; even the minor characters feel fully real. Looking more deeply than most, the author finds in the "great work" of the Ripper a ritual magic working intended to give birth to the 20th century in all its horrid glory. Maps, characters, and settings are all as accurate as possible, and while the reader might not ultimately agree with Moore and Campbell's thesis, From Hell is still a great work of literature. --Rob Lightner [via]
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Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England
by Judith Flanders

ISBN 0393327639 (0-393-32763-9)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
"Almost criminal in its housebreaking, burglarizing, second-story genius."James Kincaid, University of Southern California
The Victorian age is much closer to us in time than we might believe. Yet at that time, in the most technologically advanced nation in the world, people buried meat in fresh earth to prevent mold forming and wrung sheets out in boiling water with their bare hands. Such household drudgery was routinely performed by the grandparents of people still living, but the knowledge of it has passed as if it had never been.

Judith Flanders's book is laid out like a Victorian house, taking you through the story of daily life from room to room. In each space she depicts the home's furnishings and decoration: from childbirth in the master bedroom, through the scullery and kitchen, the separate male and female domains of the drawing room and the parlor, and ending in the sickroom. A rich selection from diaries, letters, advice books, magazines, and paintings fills the rooms with the people and personalities of the age. 100 illustrations, 3 8-page color inserts. 100 illustrations, 3 8-page color inserts [via]
More editions of Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England:
- Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England: ISBN 0393052095 (0-393-05209-5)
  Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
- Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England: ISBN 0393327639 (0-393-32763-9)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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The League of Extraordinary Gentleman
by Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill

ISBN 1401201180 (1-4012-0118-0)
Softcover, DC Comics

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Book summary:
Alan Moore and Kevin ONeills epic Victorian adventure continues in grand fashion as our intrepid band of heroesMina Murray, Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Mr. Edward Hyde, Dr. Thomas Jekyll and the Invisible Man (a.k.a. Hawley Griffin)once again must face a most dire threatbut this time its not just the fate of an empire that hangs in the balance, but that of the entire world! The first volume contains the thrilling graphic novel, complete with the Almanac of fantastic places, and the second contains Alan Moores entire script for the graphic novel, a rare and wonderful treat for any fan of sequential storytelling. This two-volume hardcover set is enclosed within an attractive slipcase. [via]
More editions of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman:
- The League of Extraordinary Gentleman: ISBN 1401206115 (1-4012-0611-5)
  Hardcover, DC Comics
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: ISBN 1401201180 (1-4012-0118-0)
  Softcover, DC Comics
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League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
by Kevin O'Neill, Alan Moore

ISBN 1563898586 (1-56389-858-6)
Softcover, Dc Comics

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Book summary:
Proving that mainstream comics could be infused with past literary/cultural ideals and still be bestsellers, the America's Best Comics imprint took the dilapidated superhero genre and created three vastly entertaining hybrids with Tom Strong, Promethea and Top Ten. Now, a stunning coup de grace is delivered with this masterful pairing of Victorian adventure fiction's greatest characters and the old war-horse of the super-group. With the stunning The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it would be no exaggeration to say that Alan Moore has produced a near-perfect piece of adventure fiction that is clever, literate, rich with excitement and hard to put down.
It's 1898 and at the behest of M, the mysterious head of the secret Service, Campion Bond is dispatched to procure the services of Miss Mina Murray (nee Harker), adventurer Allan Quartermain, "Science-Pirate" Captain Nemo, Henry Jekyll (and his monstrous alter ego) and Hawley Griffin (a.k.a. the Invisible Man). Together, they must combat an insidious threat that will decide supremacy of the London skies, but their success may unleash a far greater threat. With no shortage of action, Moore and O' Neill sustain a high level of suspense, intrigue, mystery and terrific wit that all contribute to an indispensable read. O'Neill's art, so memorable in Marshal Law, produces a London filled with vivid, magnificent architecture and a malevolent atmosphere ripe with thrills and danger. An unmitigated triumph--pure and simple. --Danny Graydon [via]
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League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 1898
by Alan Moore

ISBN 1563896656 (1-56389-665-6)
Hardcover, Dc Comics

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Book summary:
Proving that mainstream comics could be infused with past literary/cultural ideals and still be bestsellers, the America's Best Comics imprint took the dilapidated superhero genre and created three vastly entertaining hybrids with Tom Strong, Promethea and Top Ten. Now, a stunning coup de grace is delivered with this masterful pairing of Victorian adventure fiction's greatest characters and the old war-horse of the super-group. With the stunning The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it would be no exaggeration to say that Alan Moore has produced a near-perfect piece of adventure fiction that is clever, literate, rich with excitement and hard to put down.
It's 1898 and at the behest of M, the mysterious head of the secret Service, Campion Bond is dispatched to procure the services of Miss Mina Murray (nee Harker), adventurer Allan Quartermain, "Science-Pirate" Captain Nemo, Henry Jekyll (and his monstrous alter ego) and Hawley Griffin (a.k.a. the Invisible Man). Together, they must combat an insidious threat that will decide supremacy of the London skies, but their success may unleash a far greater threat. With no shortage of action, Moore and O' Neill sustain a high level of suspense, intrigue, mystery and terrific wit that all contribute to an indispensable read. O'Neill's art, so memorable in Marshal Law, produces a London filled with vivid, magnificent architecture and a malevolent atmosphere ripe with thrills and danger. An unmitigated triumph--pure and simple. --Danny Graydon [via]
More editions of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 1898:
- League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 1898: ISBN 1563896656 (1-56389-665-6)
  Hardcover, Dc Comics
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Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages
by Phyllis Rose

ISBN 0394725808 (0-394-72580-8)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
VG/NF. 1984. 4th printing. Alfred A. Knopf [via]
More editions of Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages:
- Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages: ISBN 0394524322 (0-394-52432-2)
  Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
- Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages: ISBN 0394725808 (0-394-72580-8)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
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The Ruby in the Smoke
by Philip Pullman

ISBN 0833526030 (0-8335-2603-0)
Hardcover, Bt Bound

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Book summary:
"Her name was Sally Lockhart; and within fifteen minutes, she was going to kill a man." Philip Pullman begins his Sally Lockhart trilogy with a bang in The Ruby in the Smoke--a fast-paced, finely crafted thriller set in a rogue- and scalawag-ridden Victorian London. His 16-year-old heroine has no time for the usual trials of adolescence: her father has been murdered, and she needs to find out how and why. But everywhere she turns, she encounters new scoundrels and secrets. Why do the mere words "seven blessings" cause one man to keel over and die at their utterance? Who has possession of the rare, stolen ruby? And what does the opium trade have to do with it?
As our determined and intelligent sleuth sets her mind to unraveling these dark mysteries, she learns how embroiled she is in the whole affair. As riveting and witty as the sensational "penny dreadfuls" of Victorian England (but thousands of times better written), Pullman's trilogy (including The Shadow in the North and The Tiger in the Well) will have readers on the edges of their seats. Ruby is an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. (Ages 12 and older) --Karin Snelson [via]
More editions of The Ruby in the Smoke:
- The Ruby in the Smoke: ISBN 0844672300 (0-8446-7230-0)
  Hardcover, Peter Smith Pub Inc
- The Ruby in the Smoke: ISBN 0833526030 (0-8335-2603-0)
  Hardcover, Bt Bound
The Shadow in the North
by Philip Pullman

ISBN 0844672890 (0-8446-7289-0)
Hardcover, Peter Smith Pub Inc

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More editions of The Shadow in the North:
- The Shadow in the North: ISBN 0844672890 (0-8446-7289-0)
  Hardcover, Peter Smith Pub Inc
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She
by H. Rider Haggard

ISBN 1414224311 (1-4142-2431-1)
Softcover, Indypublish.Com

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Book summary:
Ayesha is She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, a 2,000-year-old queen who rules a fabled lost city deep in a maze of African caverns. She has the occult wisdom of Isis, the eternal youth and beauty of Aphrodite, and the violent appetite of a lamia. Like A. Conan Doyle's Lost World, She is one of those magnificent Victorian yarns about an expedition to a far-off locale shadowed by magic, mystery, and death.
Tim Stout writes, in Horror: 100 Best Books, "As the plot takes hold one has the fancy that [Ayesha] had always existed, in some dark dimension of the imagination, and that [H. Rider] Haggard was the fortunate author to whom she chose to reveal herself." Haggard did, in fact, write this book in a six-week burst of feverish inspiration: "It came faster than my poor aching hand could set it down," he later said.
This edition of the 1887 classic features an introductory essay by literary critic Regina Barreca, who likens Ayesha to Flaubert's Madame Bovary or Tolstoy's Anna Karenina--"literally fantastic female figures who must be stopped before they love again." [via]
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The Tin Princess
by Philip Pullman

ISBN 0679876154 (0-679-87615-4)
Softcover, Random House Childrens Books

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Tipping the Velvet
by Sarah Waters

ISBN 1573221368 (1-57322-136-8)
Softcover, Tarcher/Putnam

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Book summary:
The heroine of Sarah Waters's audacious first novel knows her destiny, and seems content with it. Her place is in her father's seaside restaurant, shucking shellfish and stirring soup, singing all the while. "Although I didn't long believe the story told to me by Mother--that they had found me as a baby in an oyster-shell, and a greedy customer had almost eaten me for lunch--for eighteen years I never doubted my own oysterish sympathies, never looked far beyond my father's kitchen for occupation, or for love." At night Nancy Astley often ventures to the nearby music hall, not that she has illusions of being more than an audience member. But the moment she spies a new male impersonator--still something of a curiosity in England circa 1888--her years of innocence come to an end and a life of transformations begins.
Tipping the Velvet, all 472 pages of it, is as saucy, as tantalizing, and as touching as the narrator's first encounter with the seductive but shame-ridden Miss Kitty Butler. And at first even Nancy's family is thrilled with her gender-bending pal, all but her sister, best friend, and bedmate, Alice, "her eyes shining cold and dull, with starlight and suspicion." Not to worry. Soon Nancy and Kitty are off to London, their relationship close though (alas for our heroine) sisterly. We know that bliss will come, and it does, in an exceptionally charged moment. A lesser author would have been content to stop her story there, but Waters has much more in mind for her buttonholing heroine, and for us. In brief, her Everywoman with a sexual difference goes from success onstage to heartbreak to a stint as a male prostitute (necessity truly is the mother of invention) to keeping house for a brother and sister in the Labour movement. And did I mention her long stint as a plaything in the pleasure palace of a rich Sapphist extraordinaire? Diana Lethaby is as cruel as she is carnal, and even the well-concealed Cavendish Ladies' Club isn't outré enough for her. Kitting Nancy out in full, elegant drag, she dares the front desk to turn them away. "We are here," she mocks, "for the sake of the irregular."
Only after some seven years of hard twists and sensual turns does Nancy conclude that a life of sensation is not enough. Still, Tipping the Velvet is so entertaining that readers will wish her sentimental--and hedonistic--education had taken twice as long. --Kerry Fried [via]
More editions of Tipping the Velvet:
- Tipping the Velvet: ISBN 1573227889 (1-57322-788-9)
  Softcover, Riverhead Books
- Tipping the Velvet: A Novel: ISBN 1573221368 (1-57322-136-8)
  Softcover, Tarcher/Putnam
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To Say Nothing of the Dog
by Connie Willis

ISBN 0553575384 (0-553-57538-4)
Softcover, Bantam Books

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Book summary:
To Say Nothing of the Dog is a science-fiction fantasy in the guise of an old-fashioned Victorian novel, complete with epigraphs, brief outlines, and a rather ugly boxer in three-quarters profile at the start of each chapter. Or is it a Victorian novel in the guise of a time-traveling tale, or a highly comic romp, or a great, allusive literary game, complete with spry references to Dorothy L. Sayers, Wilkie Collins, and Arthur Conan Doyle? Its title is the subtitle of Jerome K. Jerome's singular, and hilarious, Three Men in a Boat. In one scene the hero, Ned Henry, and his friends come upon Jerome, two men, and the dog Montmorency in--you guessed it--a boat. Jerome will later immortalize Ned's fumbling. (Or, more accurately, Jerome will earlier immortalize Ned's fumbling, because Ned is from the 21st century and Jerome from the 19th.)
What Connie Willis soon makes clear is that genre can go to the dogs. To Say Nothing of the Dog is a fine, and fun, romance--an amused examination of conceptions and misconceptions about other eras, other people. When we first meet Ned, in 1940, he and five other time jumpers are searching bombed-out Coventry Cathedral for the bishop's bird stump, an object about which neither he nor the reader will be clear for hundreds of pages. All he knows is that if they don't find it, the powerful Lady Schrapnell will keep sending them back in time, again and again and again. Once he's been whisked through the rather quaint Net back to the Oxford future, Ned is in a state of super time-lag. (Willis is happily unconcerned with futuristic vraisemblance, though Ned makes some obligatory references to "vids," "interactives," and "headrigs.") The only way Ned can get the necessary two weeks' R and R is to perform one more drop and recuperate in the past, away from Lady Schrapnell. Once he returns something to someone (he's too exhausted to understand what or to whom) on June 7, 1888, he's free.
Willis is concerned, however, as is her confused character, with getting Victoriana right, and Ned makes a good amateur anthropologist--entering one crowded room, he realizes that "the reason Victorian society was so restricted and repressed was that it was impossible to move without knocking something over." Though he's still not sure what he's supposed to bring back, various of his confederates keep popping back to set him to rights. To Say Nothing of the Dog is a shaggy-dog tale complete with a preternaturally quiet, time-traveling cat, Princess Arjumand, who might well be the cause of some serious temporal incongruities--for even a mouser might change the course of European history. In the end, readers might well be more interested in Ned's romance with a fellow historian than in the bishop's bird stump, and who will not rejoice in their first Net kiss, which lasts 169 years! [via]
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The Victorian House: Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed
by Judith Flanders

ISBN 0007131887 (0-00-713188-7)
Hardcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
Judith Flanders takes a novel approach to rediscovering the lives of our 19th century forebears in her The Victorian House. She pays them a visit. Perhaps mindful of the success of the Channel 4 series, The 1900 House and The 1940s House, Flanders steps back a few decades earlier to embark on a room-by-room guide to a typical mid-Victorian family home. We start in the bedroom and work our way downstairs through the principal parts of a middle-class home. Particular attention is paid to the operations side of the household--the bathroom, the kitchen and the scullery--where the Victorian preoccupation with cleanliness and food is well-described. Flanders is also good at drawing out the decorative functions of the Victorian home, bringing out the separate male and female domains of the drawing room and the parlour.
A wealth of detail--from advice books such as Mrs Beeton's cookbooks, novels, contemporary magazines and autobiographies--is crammed into each room. This is more than an inventory of interior design. Flanders uses the house as a base from which Victorian attitudes towards servants, marriage, illness, death and religion can be explored. There remains a small quibble: this book should really be titled "The Middle-class House of Victorian London". We are not taken to any provincial homes. And a question mark remains over how representative Flanders' rather grand Victorian house is, heaving as it does with servants, hot water and ornate furnishings. As she herself notes, few Victorian families could afford more than one servant at the very most, many married couples still lived with their older relatives and hardly anyone owned their own home. --Miles Taylor [via]
More editions of The Victorian House: Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed:
- The Victorian House: Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed: ISBN 0007131887 (0-00-713188-7)
  Hardcover, Harpercollins
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The Victorians
by A.N. Wilson

ISBN 0393325431 (0-393-32543-1)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
The Nineteenth Century saw greater changes than any previous era: in the ways nations and societies were organized; in scientific knowledge; in nonreligious intellectual development; and in capital and its consequences. The crucial players in this drama were the British, who invented both capitalism and imperialism and were incomparably the richest, hence the most important, investors in the developing world. In this sense, England's position has strong resemblances to America's in the late twentieth century.
As one of our most accomplished biographers and novelists, A. N. Wilson has a keen eye for a good story, and in these pages he singles out those writers, statesmen, scientists, philosophers, and soldiers whose lives illuminate so grand and revolutionary a history: Darwin, Marx, Gladstone, Christina Rossetti, Gordon, Cardinal Newman, George Eliot, Kipling. Wilson's accomplishment in this book is to explain through these signature lives how Victorian England started a revolution that still hasn't ended. [via]
More editions of The Victorians:
- The Victorians: ISBN 0393049744 (0-393-04974-4)
  Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
- The Victorians: ISBN 0393325431 (0-393-32543-1)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-The Facts of Daily Life Innineteenth-Century England
by Daniel Pool

ISBN 0671882368 (0-671-88236-8)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster

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Book summary:
From fox-hunting to whist, this lively guide to the intricate manners, mores, social distinctions, sports, games, and sundry peculiarities of 19th-century England is a grand resource for anyone interested in Albion at its most arcane, eccentric, and imperial. Line drawings. [via]
More editions of What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-The Facts of Daily Life Innineteenth-Century England:
- What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-The Facts of Daily Life Innineteenth-Century England: ISBN 0671793373 (0-671-79337-3)
  Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
- What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-The Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century Enland: ISBN 0671882368 (0-671-88236-8)
  Softcover, Simon & Schuster

Spanish

Sally Y La Princesa De Hojalata/the Tin Princess
by Philip Pullman, ISABEL DE MIGUEL

ISBN 8495618524 (84-95618-52-4)
Hardcover, Ediciones Urano

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More editions of Sally Y La Princesa De Hojalata/the Tin Princess:
- Sally Y La Princesa De Hojalata/the Tin Princess: ISBN 8495618524 (84-95618-52-4)
  Hardcover, Ediciones Urano
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Sally Y LA Sombra Del Norte / The Shadow in the North
by Philip Pullman

ISBN 8495618435 (84-95618-43-5)
Hardcover, Ediciones Urano

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Book summary:
En el Londres victoriano, las estrafalarias oficinas de Lockhart y Garland -socios, amigos y mucho más- bullen de frenética actividad. Mientras Jim Taylor, el aventurero, intenta ayudar a un asustado mago a desaparecer por un tiempo, Fred Garland, el fotógrafo, estudia la forma de captar en imágenes una fraudulenta sesión de espiritismo.
Pero la misión más difícil es sin duda la de Sally Lockhart, intrépida asesora financiera. Ella sola se enfrentará a un hombre que constituye una terrible amenaza para la humanidad.
Sally Lockhart, la sagaz protagonista de esta novela de aventuras que nos traslada a la Inglaterra del siglo XIX adivinará las intenciones de esta maléfica sombra del norte y conseguirá detener su avance. ¿Pero a qué precio?
Una emocionante novela de amor, amistad y aventura. [via]
More editions of Sally Y LA Sombra Del Norte / The Shadow in the North:
- Sally Y LA Sombra Del Norte / The Shadow in the North: ISBN 8495618435 (84-95618-43-5)
  Hardcover, Ediciones Urano

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