Volume 31 Issue 9 September 1981

Mell Feast to Michaelmas

Maggie Black continues her seasonal history of food and popular culture with a look at this period of autumnal celebration at Harvest End.

Spas: Pleasure or Penance?

Taking the waters became a Victorian passion and spa towns flourished. In this article the first prize winner in History Today's Essay Competition Pamela Steen, a student at the Open University, describes the pleasure and the pains of this fashion.

Tocqueville, Democracy and Revolution

Irene Coltman Brown provides an insight into Tocqueville, who, reflecting on the history of revolutionary France, thought that liberty alone was capable of struggling successfully against revolution.

Mary Seacole

Ziggi Alexander and Audrey Dewjee consider the life of a remarkable Victorian woman.

Gilbert & Sullivan and the Victorian Age

Ian Bradley shows that the characters and plots of Gilbert and Sullivan's operas reveal much that is of interest to the historian about certain individuals and institutions of the Victorian era.