Here are 100 books that Victorian Cakes fans have personally recommended if you like
Victorian Cakes.
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Miko and Jenne are librarians who love to eat. Their love of classic children’s literature led them to start their 36 Eggs blog, where they recreate foods and experiences from their favorite books. In 2019, they published the Little Women Cookbook, which required extensive research into the food of the Victorian era.
We consulted a wide variety of historical cookbooks while writing our book, but one in particular stands out: The Young Housekeeper’s Friend (or as we affectionately call it, YHF), first published in 1846. It is actually mentioned by name more than once in Little Women, so it became our first point of reference for the recipes we wanted to include. YHF was quite popular in its day, and went through several editions–with good reason, as we discovered. Of all the cookbooks we used in our research, the recipes in this one were always the tastiest and most reliable.
Even though by modern standards the recipes are rather vague, she actually gave quite a bit more instruction than other cookbooks of the era, and many of the chapters include an introduction that goes into more detail about the overall theory of how to cook that particular type of food. During the…
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Miko and Jenne are librarians who love to eat. Their love of classic children’s literature led them to start their 36 Eggs blog, where they recreate foods and experiences from their favorite books. In 2019, they published the Little Women Cookbook, which required extensive research into the food of the Victorian era.
Until 2000, What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking (1881) was considered the first cookbook authored by a Black American. It was then that historians chanced upon an incredibly lucky finding: a copy of A Domestic Cookbook at the bottom of a box. As far as we know, there’s only ONE copy left of this little 39-page collection of recipes, which was first published in 1866.
Historians and researchers have delved deep into the mystery of author Malinda Russell, but we barely know more than she tells us in her introduction -- a life story laid out in stark, gripping first-person over just two short pages. As a business owner who specialized in pastry, Russell’s book has upended assumptions about 19th-century Black women and African American cuisine. In such a slim volume, she still includes 70+ kinds of cake and comments that “a great many ladies have wished to…
{Size: 15.34 x 23.59 cms} Leather Binding on Spine and Corners with Golden Leaf Printing on round Spine (extra customization on request like complete leather, Golden Screen printing in Front, Color Leather, Colored book etc.) Reprinted in 2021 with the help of original edition published long back [1866]. This book is printed in black & white, sewing binding for longer life, Printed on high quality Paper, re-sized as per Current standards, professionally processed without changing its contents. As these are old books, we processed each page manually and make them readable but in some cases some pages which are blur…
Miko and Jenne are librarians who love to eat. Their love of classic children’s literature led them to start their 36 Eggs blog, where they recreate foods and experiences from their favorite books. In 2019, they published the Little Women Cookbook, which required extensive research into the food of the Victorian era.
Of the many reference resources we encountered in the midst of our obsessive research for our Little Women Cookbook, this one was a favorite (along with the incomparable YHF). It’s just so satisfying to find the perfect book for a project, isn’t it? When we first started out, we thought, “We’d be so lucky to find anything about food from the Civil War era that doesn’t focus on soldiers’ rations, rich people, or the South — especially if it touches on the role of women in everyday culinary culture.” And as if our local university library were a magical genie who heard my wish, there this book was.
In Food in the Civil War Era: The North, editor Helen Zoe Veit provides a bit of background so you can understand the trends behind five Civil War-era cookbooks. Her engaging commentary made this one a surprisingly quick read.…
Cookbooks offer a unique and valuable way to examine American life. Their lessons, however, are not always obvious. Direct references to the American Civil War were rare in cookbooks, even in those published right in the middle of it. In part, this is a reminder that lives went on and that dinner still appeared on most tables most nights, no matter how much the world was changing outside. But people accustomed to thinking of cookbooks as a source for recipes, and not much else, can be surprised by how much information they can reveal about the daily lives and ways…
Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.
Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…
Miko and Jenne are librarians who love to eat. Their love of classic children’s literature led them to start their 36 Eggs blog, where they recreate foods and experiences from their favorite books. In 2019, they published the Little Women Cookbook, which required extensive research into the food of the Victorian era.
If you strive to be a Victorian-era food snob, this is the guidebook. It’s a comprehensive overview of food and cooking customs from the second half of the 19th century, packed with illustrations and tons of fun trivia. (For example: celery was considered a high-status food by the middle class because of its connection to Homer’s Odyssey. If you were looking for a trendy centerpiece, you could put it in specially appointed silver or glass vases like a bouquet of flowers. Haha!) You’ll also find an explanation of mealtimes, and how expectations for breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, and supper were different from today’s. There’s a whole chapter on Victorian table etiquette! By the way, Victorians advise that if you’re hosting a dinner party, make sure to wear an outfit that’s “rich in material, but subdued in tone” so you don’t show up any of your guests.
Savory Suppers and Fashionable Feasts offers a delightfully flavorful tour of dining in America during the second half of the 19th century. Susan Williams investigates the manners and morals of that era by looking at its eating customs and cooking methods. As she reveals, genteel dining became an increasingly important means of achieving social stability during a period when Americans were facing significant changes on a variety of fronts - social, cultural, intellectual, technological, and demographic.
Focusing on the rapidly expanding middle class, Williams not only examines mealtime rituals, but she looks at the material culture of Victorian dining: the…
In the summer of 1999, the second book in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series (The Chamber of Secrets) was published. It seemed that everyone was reading it–kids, young adults and grownups. More than that though, kids were getting excited about reading, maybe for the first time. Parents were reading it with their kids. The excitement they shared was inspiring. I thought Rowling had achieved something remarkable–something worthwhile–for a writer of fiction. It compelled me to change the story I was working on–a rather violent, edgy tale–into a book for young adults.
I love a book that makes me laugh. But if I immediately feel guilty or disturbed for laughing, if the story makes me re-examine my values page after page, that is a home run.
This – the first of the Dancers at the End of Time series of books and short stories – had me pondering the boundaries of scientific reality as well as right versus wrong while also being galactically entertained.
The (objectively awful) main characters are time- and space-hopping immortals. Virtually all-powerful, they can change their own appearance and environment at will. When one of them decides to experiment with the concept of Love…everything, and nothing, starts to change.
A vicious, delicious satire of unchecked indulgence that tests the bounds of good taste.
I’m a professor of modern Britain with a specialty in nineteenth-century social history. I’m drawn to sources and topics that tell us about how everyday people lived and thought about their lives. One favorite part of my job is the challenge of discovering more about those groups, like working-class women or children, who weren’t the main focus of earlier histories. Since 2000, I’ve taught classes at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, on Victorian Britain, the British Empire, the First World War, and the history of childhood.
This is one of the first books that I remember buying for myself in graduate school. Cullwick’s descriptions of her relationship with upper-class Arthur Munby (whom she eventually married) and the photographs of her dressed as a maid-of-all-work, a lady, a “slave,” an agricultural worker, and a valet highlight Victorian power negotiations and performativity.
Cullwick started working as a servant at the age of eight. From her diaries, I learned much about the daily lives of domestic servants: their relationships with employers, the different levels of service and employment networks, and the sheer amount of hard, physical labor that it took to run a Victorian household.
"Hannah Cullwick (1833-1909) worked all her life as a maidservant, scullion, and pot-girl. In 1854 she met Arthur Munby, 'man of two worlds,' upper-class author and poet, with a lifelong obsession for lower-class women. And so began their strange and secret romance of eighteen years and marriage of thiry-six, lived largely apart. Hannah's diaries, written on Munby's suggestion, offer an obsorbing account of life 'below stairs' in Victorian England. But they reveal, too, a woman of extraordinary independence of will, whose chosen life of drudgery gave her the freedom not to 'play the Lady,' as Munby demanded. Rescued from obscurity.…
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
I’m fascinated by the Victorians – and I’ve spent most of my career trying to understand them – because they’re so like us and so unlike us in many ways. They’re familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. I’m a historian of science, and I’m passionate about trying to understand why we think about the world – and about science – the way we do. I think it started with the Victorians, so understanding them really matters and getting it right rather than repeating the same old stories. I hope these books will help you put the Victorians in their place the way they helped me.
I think this is just such a fantastic book. It blows away the whole idea that the Victorians were prudes, embarrassed about anything to do with sex. If you really don’t want to know what your great great grandparents got up to in the bedroom, then stay away from this book.
I really like the way Fern Riddell tells her story, too. Each chapter has a different fictional character to take you though the story. I think its really original – and you’ll never think about the Victorians the same way again.
An exciting factual romp through sexual desire, practises and deviance in the Victorian era. The Victorian Guide to Sex will reveal advice and ideas on sexuality from the Victorian period. Drawing on both satirical and real life events from the period, it explores every facet of sexuality that the Victorians encountered. Reproducing original advertisements and letters, with extracts taken from memoirs, legal cases, newspaper advice columns, and collections held in the Museum of London and the British Museum, this book lifts the veil from historical sexual attitudes.
Like many of us over (ahem…we’ll say) 40, I grew up reading historical romance—those were the first full-length romance novels on store shelves. My mum is British and visits there added to my interest in Regency England. Then 50 Shades exploded and people’s spice level tolerance increased. But mainly in contemporary romance, with all the tools and toys. Curious as to how spice in the Regency would look, I went searching. I found a few of these fabulous authors, but not many choices, so I decided to write one. Now there are more authors published in this subgenre, and I’m proud to be one of them.
Ah, a Victorian woman feeling restricted, what a shock. Thus, Lady Finchingfield decides to become Mademoiselle Noire, and enthralls Lord Henry. In something of a reaction to the excesses of the Regency period, the Victorian period had more rules than women could keep up with, and this way of addressing—or circumventing them—appealed to me as very creative. The disguise and gentlemen’s club add an aura of suspense so it was a super quick read for me. I love fast-paced books.
A decadent world of dark temptation. A woman addicted to danger. A man who never believed he'd meet his match.
Lady Finchingfield dons disguise to infiltrate the chambers of London’s most decadent club. Can she keep her identity secret, or is scandal inevitable? One thing is certain: falling in love can only bring disaster.
Heat level: darkly sensual
Originally published in 2014, as 'The Gentlemen's Club' - within the 'Noire' trilogy
Read all three titles in the 'Dangerous Desire' series: Forbidden Desire Forbidden Temptation Forbidden Seduction
My fascination and emotional connection with animals have been lifelong. However, it wasn't until my second year as an undergrad student that I realized that human-animal relationship could be examined from philosophical, historical, and anthropological perspectives. Over the past couple of decades, the conversations around the roles of non-human animals in diverse cultural, social, and material contexts have coalesced under the interdisciplinary field known as Animal Studies. I draw upon this literature and use my training in law and PhD in the history of science to explore the ties between knowledge and ethics in the context of animal law.
In this field-defining classic, Ritvo boldly showed the academic world that the relations between humans and other animals are worthy of historical inquiry.
The book delves into various subjects in Victorian life: hunting and the designation of nature reserves, the emergence of pet shows and their relations to class formation, meat consumption, and its national symbolism. The book’s impressive breadth of sources spans from popular newspapers’ illustrations to agricultural studbooks.
While primarily focused on nineteenth-century England, Ritvo's insights have inspired researchers, including myself, to examine similar themes in different cultures and historical periods.
When we think about the Victorian age, we usually envision people together with animals: the Queen and her pugs, the sportsman with horses and hounds, the big game hunter with his wild kill, the gentleman farmer with a prize bull. Harriet Ritvo here gives us a vivid picture of how animals figured in English thinking during the nineteenth century and, by extension, how they served as metaphors for human psychological needs and sociopolitical aspirations.
Victorian England was a period of burgeoning scientific cattle breeding and newly fashionable dog shows; an age of Empire and big game hunting; an era of…
The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…
I've been fascinated with time travel since I was young, and that's been a few moons. When the idea came to write books that play with time and space and cloak them in a romantic comedy, I got in my favorite writing chair to see who showed up with a story. I want to entice readers to take the journey, ponderingsuppose we could time travel? I think time is malleable, at least in my characters' hands. And they've done an excellent job of keeping me intrigued with their escapades in the past and present. I hope you enjoy the books I chose to recommend as much as I did.
Trapped in Time is the quincentennial weekend escape.
Thanks to a bump on Emma’s head, the story takes you on a time-travel excursion back to the Victorian era, where modern-day Emma suddenly finds herself. With no way back to reality, she navigates and manipulates her way into the arms of the aristocratic John to serve a secret purpose.
But as Emma confronts the struggles of women in this era, she faces critical decisions of mind and heart. This story resonated on many levels to see the hard won progress as women we’ve made and that our path continues with batons held high.
On the day she and her mother escaped her cruel father, Emma Washington vowed to never fall in love.
Now, Emma is a back-to-school PhD student with bigger and better things to worry about. That is, until one night, exhausted, slightly tipsy, and on her way home from a party, the glaring white light of a car comes crashing toward her, changing her life forever. Instead of waking up in a 21st-century hospital, she finds herself waking up in the backwaters of London, Victorian England, 1881…
Trapped in a time where everything she once knew is considered witchcraft, Emma discovers…
