Victorian

Surgeons trying to eliminate pain eventually arrived at anaesthesia – but not before a contest with older, more unusual therapies. Why was mesmerism so magnetic?

Giovanni Morell—later Morelli—was born in Verona on 25 February 1816 beginning a lifetime of dedication to the art of the connoisseur.

From a cult’s rogue personalities to its foundational ideologies, how have fringe beliefs guided the direction of the American dream?

As Late Imperial China sought to rebuild as a modern state from the ashes of war, a new national post office was born.

A battle of wills between Adolphe Sax and musical instrument makers in 19th-century France saw an unprecedented legal contest unfold.

The Price of Victory: A Naval History of Britain: 1815-1945 by N.A.M. Rodger looks above decks for the story of the modern Royal Navy.

Political reputations are forged by actions, but the long view of history can be hard to predict.

There was no law permitting cremation, but there was no law against it either. On 13 January 1884, a Welsh druid took the matter to trial.

Rebecca’s radical rural protests consumed South Wales in the 19th century. Who – or what – was she?

As convicts celebrated Queen Victoria’s birthday on remote Norfolk Island, debates raged over the purpose of punishment and the merits of Alexander Maconochie’s project of moral reform.