Victorian England, a Little at a Time

Data! Data! Data!

Dr. Liese Sherwood-Fabre’s writing is full of that. She specializes in brief but fact-pact essays. My friend Joel Senter, proprietor of The Sherlockian E-Times, calls them “both entertaining and informative, as well as very well researched.”

You may have heard Dr. Sherwood-Fabre’s wonderful presentation on the criminal justice system in Victorian England at the Holmes, Doyle, & Friends Five symposium in Dayton this past March.

Her short essays have appeared in Sherlockian newsletters in five countries. Fortunately, Dr. Sherwood-Fabre has also shared these gems more widely in The Life and Times of Sherlock Holmes: Essays on Victorian England, Volume One and now in Volume Two. They would be great reference books for anyone wanting to writing Sherlock Holmes stories.   

Dr. Sherwood-Fabre answers questions about Victorian England you didn’t even know you had!

The 23 essays in her latest book, for example, open a window on inns, pubs, and ale houses; parsons, vicars, and rectors; “new women” and governesses in the Age of Victoria; circuses; vampires; the temperance movement; weddings (of a nature far removed from the recent doings at Windsor); boxing; and magnifying glasses.

And it all goes back to Sherlock Holmes. Every essay has its inspiration in at least one Canonical tale, and most cite several of them. “The Canon has thirty-five references to tea and thirty-one for coffee,” our author tells us. Who knew? Liese Sherwood-Fabre did!

Writing these educational little pieces seems to be a habit with her. I hope it’s one she doesn’t break.