Horrible Histories: Vile Victorians by Terry Deary illustrated by Martin Brown

After spending so much money on books, I felt the need to read some of my books to justify the spending, although my hobby is book buying! To avoid loading myself with some serious topics that will take some time to read, I have chosen a very thin book about Victorians. It's history and so long ago. So it won't affect my minds too much. Nowadays, I bought less novels, more on other genres. 

Horrible Histories: Vile Victorians by Terry Deary illustrated by Martin Brown

I read this on one Saturday while waiting to see the doctor during my checkup. Well, I was the number 7 in line although I reached around 7am, people woke up so early! I only managed to see the doctor on around 11:30am. I got to read around 80% of the book while waiting and finished it after got home. 

This book is actually kind of sad. It started with some facts about Queen Victoria and then some stories on Victorians lives. The child mortality rate was very high, living space was scarce. The book provides an example, "I have note of a locality where 48 men, 73 women and 59 children are living in 34 rooms.". Then there were some issues like insufficient food, child labour in coal mines, chimney sweeping, ribbon making that caused death or mutilations, etc.  

short sentences with illustrations

Next, about the schools. I couldn't imagine it. Although in 1870 the education bill was passed and every child between 5 and 12 years old had to go to school, Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens was based on an infamous teacher that caused two of his students lost their sight. There were inequality back then too, in 1870, women teachers were paid 58 pounds a year, men were paid 94 pounds. That's a big differences. There were big classes too, around 70 or 80 students per class, well, I think it's still ok. When I was in primary school, my classes were around 40 pupils and there were 8 classes on my year. Nowadays, in the same school, I heard from my friend, there was only about 4 to 5 classes per year, and 1 class around 20 to 30 students. The birth rate is lower from year to year.

Then there are information on Victorians' games, literature, plays, transportation, sewage system (mmmm.......). Also there was also the bad working environment in the factory. Lifespan was short and for poor persons, often they had to share graves with multiple bodies. Two recipes were provided too, "candied carrots" and "half day pudding". Well, not a fan of Victorian food.

I thought Jack the Ripper was a character from novel, it is not. It is a killer from Victorian era. Another famous criminal was Mary Ann Cotton. She killed around 15 to 20 people (husbands, lover, children) and not get caught due to she changed name everytime she remarried and death was very common in that era. Sweeney Todd was really a character from the penny dreadful novel though.  

The author closed with quote from Charles Dickens "A tale of two cities". By the time the Queen died, there were electric lights and electric chairs, motor cars and crashes, very very rich and the very very poor. It was such the contrast. 

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way."