#victorianstudies

I’m super excited to be joining the studyblr community and to make heaps of friends *hopefully* 🤞🏻🤞🏻 Thanks for reading all of this & enjoy your day !!

name aesthetics have ended for now!!

Absolutely enamoured with all the Victorian details in the Palm House at Kew Gardens // The Palm House is likely the closest I'll ever get to seeing what the Crystal Palace was like and even that is a stretch compared to how massive the palace likely was. A bit of history behind this structure: The architects designed the house using techniques from the ship building industry since a glasshouse of this size had never been built before. #victorianstudies #fromthearchives (at Palm House) https://www.instagram.com/kristinamcclend/p/BxM4-JXHrYs/?igshid=9fsgqlhrej26

This shopfront always reminds me of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese which she wrote throughout her courtship with Robert Browning. Their romance and runaway marriage is absolutely wild and I'm still waiting for a film adaptation to capture this brilliant Victorian narrative as a period drama and bring it into mainstream popular culture. In any case, here is the final sonnet from the collection for this rainy Thursday afternoon. // Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers Plucked in the garden, all the summer through, And winter, and it seemed as if they grew In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers. So, in the like name of that love of ours, Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too, And which on warm and cold days I withdrew From my heart’s ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue, And wait thy weeding; yet here’s eglantine, Here’s ivy!—take them, as I used to do Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine. Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true, And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine. #victorianstudies #victorianpoetry (at Columbia Road Flower Market) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtB9OWOnXFg/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=16n54hu9pngk5

What better #tbt than this vintage bus that travels along Route 15 from the Tower of London to Trafalgar Square? // In a rabbit hole of research, I found myself looking into the history of omnibuses in Victorian London. One website describes how ‘By the 1860s a few daring ladies had ventured onto the upper-deck seats, and “modesty” or “decency” boards were fixed to obscure the view of the ladies ankles from below. Eventually these boards were used for advertising.’ #tfl #londonlatergrams #victorianstudies (at Trafalgar Square)

Amidst loads of book buying at my two favourite shops, a visit to a small yet stunning Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the Royal Academy, tea at Fortnum and Mason with @carolineauckland and a stellar and soothing meal with @lolatemie , I visited what is now my favourite coffee shop in all of London. // Taking its name from an early 17th century critic of coffee, this coffeehouse has adopted the Victorian aesthetic with enthusiasm and beauty. I am lamenting the fact that this place did not exist whilst I was working on my MA as I would have been a frequent patron revelling in the gorgeous spaces and interactions with the kind and hilarious staff. #londoncoffeeshops #victorianstudies (at Syrup of Soot)

Amidst tree decorating and gathering addresses for Christmas cards, I find myself researching the ways the Victorians contributed to Christmas traditions we still celebrate today. The V&A has a particularly apt article with a few seasonal gems below you can use as fodder for your office holiday parties #victorianstudies #avictorianchristmas // ‘One of the most significant seasonal traditions to emerge from the Victorian era is the Christmas card. It was Sir Henry Cole, the first director of the V&A, who introduced the idea of the Christmas card in 1843. Cole commissioned the artist J.C. Horsley to design a festive scene for his seasonal greeting cards and had 1000 printed – those he didn't use himself were sold to the public. Later in the century, improvements to the chromolithographic printing process made buying and sending Christmas cards affordable for everyone. The decorated Christmas tree was a custom introduced to Britain by Prince Albert. The idea of an indoor Christmas tree originated in Germany, where Albert was born. In 1848 the Illustrated London News published a drawing of the royal family celebrating around a tree bedecked with ornaments. The popularity of decorated Christmas trees grew quickly, and with it came a market for tree ornaments in bright colours and reflective materials that would shimmer and glitter in the candlelight.’ (at Greenwich Village)

'I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.' -Jorge Luis Borges // #librariesweek has me dreaming of paradise at the Bodleian. Using their special collections and writing parts of my dissertation in the Duke Humfreys Library and Radcliffe Camera were some of the utmost highlights of my masters degree. Missing those stacks, the smell of old books, and a scholarly atmosphere conducive for an incredible amount of focus and concentration. #shelfie #therestrictedsection #tbt #victorianstudies (at Bodleian Libraries)