“Mine is a nature which requires being loved.”
— QUEEN VICTORIA
Books
July 31st, 2025
From the moment John Brown arrived as a servant to Queen Victoria's household, he became known across the land as her loyal companion, her fierce protector, and her right-hand man, their friendship immortalised in print and later on-screen. But what if there was more to their relationship than we know?
And what has history been hiding from us?
In this provocative exploration of Victoria's emotional world, and her passionate midlife, the acclaimed historian Fern Riddell re-examines everything we thought we knew about one of Britain's most iconic women. A timeless romance and an extraordinary retelling of the intimate life of a queen, Victoria's Secret is an unmissable account of a woman in love.
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The Victorian Guide To Sex
2014
An exciting factual romp through sexual desire, practises and deviance in the Victorian era. Drawing on both satirical and real life events from the period, it explores every facet of sexuality that the Victorians encountered.
Reproducing original advertisements and letters, with extracts taken from memoirs, legal cases, newspaper advice columns, and collections held in the Museum of London and the British Museum, this book lifts the veil from historical sexual attitudes.
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Death In Ten Minutes
2018
Kitty Marion was sent across the country by the Pankhurst family to carry out a nationwide campaign of bombings and arson attacks, as women fought for the vote using any means necessary. Now, for the first time, their untold story will be brought back to life.
Telling a new history of the women's movement in the light of new and often shocking revelations, this book will ask the question: Why has the life of this incredible woman, and the violence of the suffragettes been forgotten? And, one hundred years later, why are women suddenly finding themselves under threat again? -
Sex: Lessons From History
2021
In this wide-ranging and powerful new history of sex, Dr Fern Riddell uncovers the sexual lives of our ancestors and show that, just like us, they were as preoccupied with sexual identities, masturbation, foreplay, sex, deviance; facing it with the same confusion, joy and accidental hilarity that we do today.
Sex: Lessons from History is a revealing and fascinating look at how we've always been obsessed with how sex makes us who we are.A Daily Mail ‘Book of the Week’ 2021