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How to be a Victorian - a time traveller's guide to Victorian Britain by the BBC's Ruth Goodman

We know what life was like for Victoria and Albert. But what was it like for a commoner like you or me? How did it feel to cook with coal and wash with tea leaves? Drink beer for breakfast and clean your teeth with cuttlefish? Dress in whalebone and feed opium to the baby? Surviving everyday life came down to the gritty details, the small necessities and tricks of living.

Drawing on Ruth's unique first-hand experience, gained from living on a Victorian farm for a year, this book will teach you everything you need to know about 19th century living.

If you liked A Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England or If Walls Could Talk, you will love this book.

Popular Historian Ruth Goodman is an expert in nineteenth-century social and domestic history. She has presented a number of BBC television series, including Victorian Farm and Edwardian Farm and is a regular expert on The One Show. She spent ten years as a historical advisor to the Royal Shakespeare Company's Globe Theatre and has co-authored three books, including the Number One Bestseller Victorian Farm. Written with such passion that one cannot help but be carried along . . . Will fascinate and inform anyone who is in any way interested in Victorian ways of life -- Dr Ian Mortimer, author of 'The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England' A delightful read . . . allows us to see how the Victorians lived from day to day. A triumph -- Judith Flanders, author of 'The Victorian City' Shocking, exciting, wonderful -- Clive Anderson * BBC Radio 4 * Written with such passion that one cannot help but be carried along . . . Will fascinate and inform anyone who is in any way interested in Victorian ways of life -- Dr Ian Mortimer, author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England A delightful read . . . allows us to see how the Victorians lived from day to day. A triumph -- Judith Flanders, author of The Victorian City Shocking, exciting, wonderful -- Clive Anderson * BBC Radio 4 * I absolutely love this book. Exuberant, absorbing ... there's scarcely a detail of Victorian life Ruth has not tried -- A N Wilson * Mail on Sunday * Ruth - a woman who possesses so much elbow grease that she could probably can the overflow to sell on the side * Independent * Goodman's enthusiasm for history is as palpable as her contempt for misty-eyed interpretations of it * Telegraph * Beetonian, compendious * Guardian * Highly readable, often amusing and sometimes shocking, this is popular history at its best * BBC Who Do You Think You Are magazine *

How to be a Victorian