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Sarah Elizabeth Cox

@oispooky.bsky.social

5.4K followers 660 following 3.2K posts

👩🏻‍💻 PR @britsciassoc.bsky.social 🥊 1880s boxing + wrestling historian 📕 THE DEVIL'S DANCE FLOOR (Duckworth, 2026/27) ✍🏻 Moscow, Munroe, Goodson, Wannop, Smith, Ball &c. 🤜🏻 Advisor #AThousandBlows 🏖️ Clacton-on-Sea 🖤 www.grapplingwithhistory.com

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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 3d

Seconds out! Round one!

THE DEVIL'S DANCE FLOOR

This isn't an official announcement from Duckworth. It's a page from my agent's newsletter and book fair rights catalogue, which is public. So, a tiny-text soft launch? Details subject to change.

A lot of thank yous and less Disney, to come.

🐻🥊👊🏾👊🏻🦁🍺

Page from literary agency Curious Minds rights guide for Frankfurt Book Fair etc. Alongside a photo of me looking slightly drunk and a lot hostile, it says, in tiny font:

NEW DEALS
AGENT - Eli Keren
PUBLISHER - Duckworth
PUBLICATION - Spring 2027
STATUS - Manuscript due April 2026
LENGTH - 80,000 words
RIGHTS SOLD
World English (Duckworth)
The Devil’s Dance Floor
Late-Victorian London and the Last Bareknuckle Boys
SARAH ELIZABETH COX
An 1880s’ group biography of the last of Britain’s
bareknuckle boxers from the historical consultant behind
A Thousand Blows (Disney+/Hulu)
THE DEVIL’S DANCE FLOOR is the first popular book from Sarah Elizabeth Cox,
the historical consultant behind Steven Knight’s television series A Thousand Blows
and author of the historical blog ‘Grappling with History’.
A group biography of Victorian boxers, THE DEVIL’S DANCE FLOOR is a cultural
history that does far more than recount the true story behind the fictionalized
version now streaming. Taking a narrative approach, Cox charts the decline of
bareknuckle boxing over the 1880s, and, in doing so, explores subjects ranging
from policing and healthcare to the press and entertainment – all while offering a
personal-scale view of the melting point of Victorian London (think Hallie
Rubenhold’s The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper but
with a lot more getting punched in the face).
The subjects themselves hail from as far afield as London’s East End and the North
to the United States and the Caribbean. Each has a unique story to tell and reveals
something not only about our shared history but also about the world we live in
today.
Sarah Elizabeth Cox was a historical consultant on season one and two of Steven Knight's
1880s’ boxing and crime TV drama A Thousand Blows. She researches biographies of
Victorian and Edwardian boxers and wrestlers for her website ‘Grappling with History’ and
works as the British Science Association’…

1888 portrait of boxer Hezekiah Moscow, a slim Black or Black/East Asian mixed heritage man, taken by Harry Carpenter. He is shirtless, fists raised, wearing white tights and a chequered sash at the waist. There are painted palms on the studio backdrop.

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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 29m

Thank you! I appreciate your comment :) We usually we get "you get what you vote for, you're all racists, you deserve him" on social media. An attitude that isn't correct or helpful!

Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 1h

I've got quite a lot of jobs but at least ten less jobs than Nigel Farage and at least some of them are, hopefully, contributing to society eh, if not my bank balance.

Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 1h

They're welcome to get in touch - I've done a few interviews with Guardian, Mirror and US TV previously about it all.

Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 1h

🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 1h

My tanned from pram pushing arm is pointing at old newspapers in the British Library!

Excited to be presenting research on 1880s boxer Alec Munroe to 1000s of GCSE students across the UK next Monday at the National Archives event, Archives Live: Whitechapel🥊

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/archives-l...

A woman's hand with nice red fingernails points at an 1885 copy of the Illustrated Police News, a newspaper with lots of black and white cartoons of murders and other dramatic events on the cover

A pink, orange and green comic strip style artwork depicting Charles Boothe, some Irish immigrants to Victorian London, a match girl, cop, and a Jamaican boxer in a suit, fists raised

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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 1h

The total disinterest and lethargy from the other parties was just awful. I'm looking at the Greens and Lib Dems for next time. Clacton has NEVER had a non Tory or Ukip and never had a woman. But never say never, eh!

Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 1h

During the campaign, we got one flyer through early from Labour and zilch other campaign material from any other party. But Reform bombarded us all with leaflets and letters. Even one from Ann Widdecombe, who I thought was dead 😂 They drove electric billboards & buses up and down past my flat etc.

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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 1h

I was so so angry about that whole situation. And Jovan still got a decent number of votes, to be honest! He was fantastic. I'm as angry at Labour for what they did, treating him and all of us here with contempt, than I am at Reform directly.

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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 1h

Hah, it really is.

I appreciate all you're doing to hammer Farage on here, and I hope to be able to do the same with my neighbours at the next election. The vibes here are NOT in his favour so far. Even among 60yr old blokes in Wetherspoons!

Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 2h

Also my son won't eat bread and cutting hot lunches has been a colossal pain in the ass 🤬

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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 2h

How ANYONE here can see these things and still vote for this grotesque man in 2029 is beyond me. I genuinely believe they won't. He's not even TRYING to make it look like he's interested in us. But how to show that? Not everyone's endlessly scrolling BlueSky or reading the Mirror.

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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 2h

My kid's Clacton nursery has cut hot lunches for toddlers to save money, and sent round leaflets to parents advising us on preparing packed lunches for around 90p per day.

They have no waiting list for places because there's so few jobs here worth doing once you've covered childcare.

Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 23h

Twelve Jobs Nigel has earned over £1 million in additional income since the general election.

To understand the scale of it, since the July 2024 election he's earned roughly £100k more as a brand ambassador for Direct Bullion than Starmer gets as PM.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...

Nigel Farage earns over £1m from 12 'second jobs' - check how much your MP earns

The Reform UK leader's most lucrative second jobs include hosting on GB News, serving as a brand ambassador for Direct Bullion and recording videos for Cameo

www.mirror.co.uk

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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 11h

Be more Steve Le Comber.

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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 11h

My lovely friend Dr Steve Le Comber, who died 6 yrs ago at the horribly young age of 53, worked at Jackie in the '80s or early '90s. He then decided to do a degree in ecology & biology. Became a fish male mating expert. A naked mole rat expert. A parakeet expert. A bat expert. A proper inspiration.

Petra Boynton @petraboynton.bsky.social · 17h

The British Newspaper Archive now includes Jackie and I was delighted to note problem pages in prominent position blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2025/10/06/j...

Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

We welcome iconic best-selling teen magazine Jackie to The Archive. Browse every single edition of the weekly magazine for girls, from 1964 through to 1993.

blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 12h

I let my not-even-two-year-old watch a Korean YouTube Pinkfong Halloween cartoon today where a cute bunny said she wanted to drink lots of blood, so buying this for the nephew's impending sixth birthday seems fine 😂🤷🏻‍♀️

Dr Lindsey Fitzharris @drlindseyfitz.bsky.social · 18h

When does death begin?

In the 18th century, no one could agree—some said when the pulse stopped, others when the body began to rot. Out of that debate came a century of strange experiments on severed heads.

Learn more in our kids’ book DEAD ENDS (w/ @tealcartoons.bsky.social): shorturl.at/FS3nd

A cartoon by Adrian Teal that depicts a guillotine and a severed head, with a modern-looking doctor holding a stethoscope to the head.

The cover of DEAD ENDS featuring a cartoon man being electrocuted back to life

Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 12h

Only in the Computer Room!!!

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 13h

after careful study, I believe only people born between 1975 and 1995 should be allowed to use the internet

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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 14h

(You get free access in lots of libraries and, bizarrely, Wetherspoons!)

Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 14h

Ooh that sounds good. My family surname - Court - is somewhat problematic as a search term 😂

BNA is the BEST value for money, although, doubled in recent years! Think I paid £100 for the year but I don't have any modern newspaper subscriptions 😂 £100 for basically the entirety of British history!!!

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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 14h

I put a lot of thought into the placement of those dashes in my post but it still ended up completely nonsensical didn't it 😂

Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 14h

Reading the things I'm looking for in the British Newspaper Archive and then getting endlessly sidetracked in the middle of the might by other random things on the page, mostly 😂

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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 14h

I've managed to get quite a lot of the burnt animals in 😂 My Editor is going to lose the will to live... But. It IS kiiiinda relevant...

Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 15h

An extremely minor character in my boxing history book founded an invisible-trouser-stretching company after all his animals burnt to death, and then he went bankrupt, and I've got a LOT of questions but the main one is how on earth I'm supposed to let this one go and focus...

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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 15h

Wouldn't blame him at all. I voted for him but I'm angrier with Labour over the election last year more than I am at Reform directly, to be honest!

Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 17h

Just read an 1884 story about a man who thought his favourite dog had been poisoned so he gave him some medicine and the dog bit him, so the man sucked his finger to stop the blood and he dropped down dead soon after. Turns out the terrier hadn't been poisoned, but he did have rabies.

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Reposted by Sarah Elizabeth Cox

Lucy Betteridge-Dyson @lmbd1418.bsky.social · 22h

Happy Publication day to me! 🥳
Jungle Commandos is out now! @ospreypublishing.bsky.social

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