What’s it all about?

This Substack started as a way I could talk to people about the wonderful world of Victorian publishing, the rise of the Macmillan family, and the extraordinary cast of characters who lived, wrote and socialised in London in the second half of the nineteenth century. It gave me a chance to share what I had learnt, and learnt to love, about authors as diverse as Tennyson and Tom Hughes, Matthew Arnold and Christina Rossetti, Lewis Carroll and Charles Kingsley. I wanted my readers to understand the radical, Christian Socialist message that inspired and drove the foundation of one of the greatest international publishing houses of the twentieth century and beyond.

In 2024, my book about the Macmillans will be published, and my focus has already shifted: inspired by my love of the literature of the 1930s and 1940s, I’m going to be focusing on a particular generation of women who grew up post WW1, women who had the right to vote, to get a proper education, and to earn a decent independent living. The books they wrote, the lives they lived. Please stay for the ride!

Subscribe for free to get full access to the newsletter and website. I’m also happy to send a FREE copy of my first book, Nelly Erichsen: A Hidden Life, to any subscriber who sends me an address and is happy to pay the postage. Just drop me an email.

I’m not after your money! I just want to whet your appetite for all things Macmillan family, the world of publishing and British literature and culture from the 1830s to the 1930s.

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