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Samuel Plimsoll MP (1824-1898) is a peripheral character in Victorian history, but his contribution to politics was immense. His Big Idea was to mark a line on the side of a ship to indicate the lowest level at which it might safely sit in the water. Although that might sound like plain common sense, opposition to Plimsoll’s proposal was colossal. Some ruthless shipowners would deliberately over-insure their vessels and send them to sea in a terrible state of repair. If the ship sank, they would receive several times its value, but the crew would meet with a salty death. Although such extreme cases were mercifully rare, it was relatively common practice for businessmen to seriously overload their vessels in a bid to maximise profits. Understandably, sailors were reluctant to crew these “coffin-ships”, but refusal meant three months’ imprisonment - the law protected the criminal, rather than the victim. ...

My Trollope season continues with The Eustace Diamonds (1873), the third in the series of Palliser novels, and my least favourite thus far. The young and beautiful Lizzie Greystock traps the elderly and very wealthy Sir Florian Eustace into marriage, and within a year she is a widow in possession of a necklace worth £10,000 (around half a million quid): the Eustace diamonds. Although she is adamant that the jewels were a gift from her late husband, the Eustace family lawyer insists they were an heirloom and therefore not hers to keep. He embarks upon a quest to retrieve them from the clutches of the recalcitrant Lady Eustace, who boldly repels the intrusions of detectives and decamps to Scotland in order to protect her assets. ...

The second of Trollope’s Palliser novels, Phineas Finn, is also the first of his works with a predominant parliamentary theme. Although of relatively humble origins, the eponymous hero is elected MP for Loughshane through the support of his father’s old friend Lord Tulla. His father urges him to merely dabble in politics and focus on building a more lucrative legal career, but Finn is seduced by a life in Westminster and the circles in which he is now moving. ...

Although “Victorian Sex Goddess” is a rather sensational title for a book, this account of the redoubtable Lady Colin Campbell by G H Fleming is refreshingly understated. I’m sure few writers could resist the temptation to ham up one of the most dramatic court cases in British legal history. He mainly allows the case to speak for itself, but includes a plethora of seemingly insignificant details which both delight and enlighten the reader. ...

Referred to by G A Sala as “that remarkable and eminently disagreeable fiction”, Caroline Clive’s Paul Ferroll is a rare example of a unique novel. Published in 1855, it could be described as an early sensation novel with a strong element of psychological drama. Although the eponymous Ferroll is the embodiment of a successful Victorian gentleman – he is an eminent author, respected magistrate and friend of the local gentry – there is a cold-blooded killer lurking beneath the respectable exterior. The reader gradually learns that he murdered his first wife in order to marry his true love, Elinor, with whom he goes on to have a daughter. Although his neighbours gossip about the unseemly haste with which he re-marries, they cannot imagine that a man of his standing could have committed such a crime. Instead, a servant is charged then acquitted, and subsequently emigrates to Canada in order to escape the scandal. It is the return of this servant after eighteen years that prompts Ferroll to publicly confess his crime. Although sentenced to death at the conclusion of a dramatic trial, he manages to escape to a new life in Boston. ...

I was prompted to seek out The Mysterious Marie Corelli: Queen of Bestsellers after reading The Sorrows of Satan. Quite apart from the astonishingly narcissistic writing style, I was tantalised by the short accompanying biography, which suggested a fascinating and contradictory life. Although an independent and successful woman, she vehemently opposed women’s suffrage, referring to the Suffragettes as “Ladies who scream”. Her novels portray marriage as the desideratum of all girls, yet she chose to share her life with another woman, Bertha Vyer. ...

Antonio Melechi’s Servants of the Supernatural is an eclectic selection of accounts describing the Victorians’ fascination with the supernatural, what he calls a “gallery of contrasting thumbnail portraits”. Perhaps the most intriguing portrait is that of Franz Anton Mesmer, an Austrian who took the continent by storm with his theory of animal magnetism, which he believed was capable of “curing directly all disorders of the nervous system, and indirectly all other maladies.” People were queuing up to be healed, and Mesmer built a makeshift infirmary in an oak tree, personally magnetised by him. Incredibly, it housed up to 100 patients, who were tied in by a rope. The popularity of this bizarre treatment enabled Mesmer to franchise animal magnetism throughout France. Franchisees would be instructed by Mesmer and then receive a diploma authorising them to practice. One can but wonder how he would have fared on Dragons’ Den. ...

Marie Corelli’s The Sorrows of Satan (1895) is possibly the oddest novel I’ve ever read. And that’s saying something. The plot concerns Geoffrey Tempest, a struggling novelist, who unexpectedly inherits £5 million from a distant relative. This stroke of good fortune coincides with a visit from Prince Lucio Raminez, who the reader soon realises is the eponymous Satan. Tempest unwittingly makes a Faustian pact, and the life of which he could once only dream finally becomes a reality. He marries a much-celebrated society beauty, Lady Sybil Elton, and is able to buy them an idyllic home in the countryside. His new-found wealth also brings fame, thus ensuring an eager market for his novel. ...

George Grossmith (1847-1912) is, of course, cherished by the nation for having penned the inimitable The Diary of a Nobody with his younger brother Weedon. It is less well known that he was a talented entertainer, appearing in a number of Gilbert and Sullivan operas, and also touring with his own show. Tony Joseph, in George Grossmith: Biography of a Savoyard, illuminates all areas of his life and career, giving a sense of his inestimable contribution to nineteenth-century culture. ...

When Aubrey Beardsley died in 1898, he was aged just 25. Although his career was tragically short, his work epitomises the Fin de Siècle, with its decadent, and sometimes shocking, figures. Beardsley was born in Brighton in 1872, in the home of his maternal grandparents. Although his immediate family moved to London soon afterwards, he retained his affinity with Brighton, attending the Grammar School while staying with his aunt. His school days are described as being unusually happy, and he benefited from the tutelage of the dynamic and progressive headmaster Ebenezer Marshall. Marshall pushed both pupils and teachers to achieve their full potential, and he had the reputation of a slave driver: “He refused to countenance the establishment of a ‘staff room’, considering that his teachers should be out among their pupils, not skulking in a den consuming tea and digestive biscuits.” ...