* Dead Born, Joan Lock, Robert Hale, London, 2001. A Victorian detective story along the lines of Anne Perry, purchased because I met the author at the Women’s Library seminar on which I blogged a couple of months ago – she has had an interesting life, having been one of the early women in the police force, a subject on which she has written a number of books.
Central to this story is the 1878 sinking of the pleasure steamer Princess Alice, which killed more than 640, many of them women and children. (There’s a monument in Greenwich.)
The other main “historical” element is baby farms, to which unmarried women went to have their babies – many of which were killed immediately after birth, although the mothers were told they would be adopted by wealthy couples.
*The Englishwoman in America, Isabella Bird, her first book. There’s a brief biography here.
*The Tailor-King: the Rise and Fall of the Anabaptist Kingdom on Munster, Anthony Arthur, Thomas Dunne, New York, 1999. Having just read Marguerite Yourcenar’s The Abyss, I wanted to know more about the historical events here, and when I walked into the academic remainder shop this afternoon there was this, sitting waiting for me.
* Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III, Flora Fraser, 2004. I only went into WH Smith for some file boxes, but this was sitting there half-price, and it was already on my Amazon list …
* Clay Tobacco Pipes, Eric G. Ayto, Shire, 2002. Absolutely fascinating – really!
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