Judith Flanders Books In Order

Sam Clair Books In Order

Writers’ Block (2014)
A Bed of Scorpions (2015)
A Cast of Vultures (2016)
A Howl of Wolves (2018)

Non fiction

A Circle of Sisters (2001)
Sharp Practice (2002)
The Victorian House (2003)
Inside the Victorian Home (2004)
The Discovery Of Neverland (2005)
Consuming Passions (2006)
The Invention of Murder (2011)
The Victorian City (2012)
The Making of Home (2014)
Christmas: A Biography (2017)
Christmas: A History (2018)
A Place For Everything (2020)

Sam Clair Book Covers

Non fiction Book Covers

Judith Flanders Books Overview

A Circle of Sisters

‘Drive’s a four horse chariot through the nineteenth century…
.I have enjoyed this book more than I can say.’ John Julius Norwich The Macdonald sisters Alice, Georgiana, Agnes and Louisa started life in the teeming ranks of the lower middle clas*ses, denied the advantages of education and the expectation of social advancement. Yet as wives and mothers they would connect a famous painter, a president of the Royal Academy, a prime minister, and the uncrowned poet laureate of the Empire. Georgiana and Agnes married, respectively, the pre Raphaelite painter Edward Burne Jones and the arts administrator Edward Poynter; Louisa gave birth to future prime minister Stanley Baldwin, and Alice was mother to Rudyard Kipling. A Circle of Sisters brings to life four women living at a privileged moment in history. Their progress from obscurity to imperial grandeur indicates the vitality of 19th century Britain: a society abundant with possibility. From their homes in India and England, the sisters formed a network that, through the triumphs and tragedies of their families and the Empire, uniquely endured. 16 pages of illustrations.

The Victorian House

The bestselling social history of Victorian domestic life, told through the letters, diaries, journals and novels of 19th century men and women. The Victorian age is both recent and unimaginably distant. In the most prosperous and technologically advanced nation in the world, people carried slops up and down stairs; buried meat in fresh earth to prevent mould forming; wrung sheets out in boiling water with their bare hands. This drudgery was routinely performed by the parents of people still living, but the knowledge of it has passed as if it had never been. Running water, stoves, flush lavatories even lavatory paper arrived slowly throughout the century, and most were luxuries available only to the prosperous. Judith Flanders, author of the widely acclaimed ‘A Circle of Sisters’, has written an incisive and irresistible portrait of Victorian domestic life. The book itself is laid out like a house, following the story of daily life from room to room: from childbirth in the master bedroom, through the scullery, kitchen and dining room cleaning, dining, entertaining on upwards, ending in the sickroom and death. Through a collage of diaries, letters, advice books, magazines and paintings, Flanders shows how social history is built up out of tiny domestic details. Through these we can understand the desires, motivations and thoughts of the age. Many people today live in Victorian terraces, and so the houses themselves are familiar, but the lives are not. ‘The Victorian House‘ will change all that.

Inside the Victorian Home

‘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.

The Invention of Murder

‘We are a trading community, a commercial people. Murder is doubtless a very shocking offence, nevertheless as what is done is not to be undone, let us make our money out of it.’ Punch Murder in the 19th century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment began and became ubiquitous transformed into novels, into broadsides and ballads, into theatre and melodrama and opera even into puppet shows and performing dog acts. In this meticulously researched and compelling book, Judith Flanders author of ‘The Victorian House’ retells the gruesome stories of many different types of murder both famous and obscure. From the crimes and myths of Sweeny Todd and Jack the Ripper, to the tragedies of the murdered Marr family in London’s East End, Burke and Hare and their bodysnatching business in Edinburgh, to Greenacre who transported his dismembered fiancee around town by omnibus. With an irresistible cast of swindlers, forgers, and poisoners, the mad, the bad and the dangerous to know, ‘The Invention of Murder‘ is both a gripping tale of crime and punishment, and history at its most readable.