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Reposted by Heather Tweed

Victorian Web @victorianweb.bsky.social · 16h

For Wednesday, what better than Helen Wilson's handsome and most enjoyable book on the Pinwell sisters and their brilliant woodcarving career victorianweb.org/sculpture/pi...

Cover of Helen Wilson'sbook on "The Remarkable Pinwell Sisters"

Choir stall bench end carved by the Pinwill Sisters at Plympton St. Mary, Plymouth, Devon, 1898. Photograph © Helen Wilson.

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

I'm writing this book partly, mostly, for readers who aren't already into boxing 🥊

The Devil's Dance Floor is about pugilists, pressmen, policemen, and Alf Ball's pet puma. Murder, madness, Jem Smith's tight tights. We got wives. Bald bears. A Victorian epidemic of discarded orange peel! Smallpox!

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

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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Victorian Web @victorianweb.bsky.social · 2d

At Eastbourne #OnThisDay 1892, Lewis Carroll recorded in his journal just four words: "Death of Alfred #Tennyson." It was a personal blow to him as well as a national event, as Ray Dyer explains: victorianweb.org/authors/carr...
.

Pencil portrait of Tennyson in later life, by Helen Allingham

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Heather Tweed @heathertweed.bsky.social · 2d

Oh how wonderful. It was meant to be! I sometimes wonder if it’s the overlooked people we’re researching giving us a helping hand 👻😂

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Heather Tweed @heathertweed.bsky.social · 2d

What an experience! Looking forward to book 📕

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Heather Tweed @heathertweed.bsky.social · 2d

Wonderful image. 😃

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Reposted by Heather Tweed

Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · 6d

We've updated our three BlueSky starter packs for historians.

Our principal list now includes details of 130+ societies and networks, based in the UK and Ireland, that advance the study, research and promotion of history go.bsky.app/AZaYQDd

Please let us know if there are gaps.
#Skystorians 1/2

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Victorian Commons @victoriancommons.bsky.social · 12d

Born #OnThisDay 1819 Edward William Watkin, Liberal MP for Great Yarmouth 1857, Stockport 1864-8 (& later MP for Hythe). He was a major railway entrepreneur & made a failed attempt to extend his network to France with a Channel Tunnel.

Head and shoulders portrait of a man. He is balding and has a white beard. He is dressed in black, but has a red handkerchief peeping out of his jacket pocket.

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Heather Tweed @heathertweed.bsky.social · 8d

🐇🐇🐇

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Dr Ian McCormick @wokestudies.bsky.social · 10d

Dog days! (dies caniculares).
The Romans associated hot weather (in late summer) and madness with the “Dog Star” Sirius, the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major.
It was a dangerous time to write poetry.

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Standawhile @standawhile.bsky.social · 11d

I thought I recognised it as Plas Newydd! We visited nearly 40 years ago but I was very taken by the idea of a special chamber to apply your wig powder.

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Heather Tweed @heathertweed.bsky.social · 10d

Oh wonderful 😃. So memorable & ecological to boot! A nearby artist who had been a computer programmer recreated an all white, lifesize textile version of the bedchamber.

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Heather Tweed @heathertweed.bsky.social · 11d

Wig-powdering room at Plas Newydd, Llangollen 😃🌞

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Heather Tweed @heathertweed.bsky.social · 11d

It’s a wig-powdering room. You stick your head through the hole & your servant applies the powder without spreading it on clothes or bedroom. Goodness knows what the servant looked like after 😬😂

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Heather Tweed @heathertweed.bsky.social · 11d

👏 congratulations! At Plas Newydd, Llangollen. Have you visited? It’s fabulous. Very liveable 😃🌞

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Heather Tweed @heathertweed.bsky.social · 11d

😂 close….ish ….

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ID @chuffnell.bsky.social · 16d

Bronze & enamel lectern by Gilbert Bayes in the Savoy Chapel, memorial to Laurence (son of Henry) Irving who drowned with 1000 others when the Empress of Ireland sank off Canada in 1914. Its captain Henry Kendall, on his prior ship, sent the radio message that led to Dr Crippen's arrest.

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Heather Tweed @heathertweed.bsky.social · 11d

Ah well I think it may be time for me to leave here. It’s an empty echo chamber! 😂Where are all the thousands of interesting chatty historians, Victorianists & generally interesting folk from the good old Twitter?
Where are the countless conversations & exchange of info? 🤷‍♀️

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Kev F Comic Artist @kevfcomicartist.bsky.social · 12d

Today I have mostly been having a fun day at the Lakes meeting people. Then I've only gone & spent ages colouring pages of Romeo and Juliet, so I'm missing the blooming launch event. It's like I really enjoy doing comics or something

Here's a bit I just coloured, Kickstarter runs for a fortnight

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British Music Hall Society @musichallsociety.bsky.social · 16d

Two fantastic #BMHS events this October! 🎭
📚 Archive on Show @ Lambeth Archives – Thu 9 Oct, 2pm
🎤 Kirsty Roberts Talk @ The Water Rats – Tue 21 Oct, 7pm (celebrating Black performers in Morecambe’s history)
📖 Book here: britishmusichallsociety.com/events

Events | British Music Hall Society

Our events are sociable affairs and open to everyone, come along and join us!

britishmusichallsociety.com

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Markonthemaps (Mark Ovenden) @markonthemaps.bsky.social · 12d

For the #Railway200 celebrations today we spoke with one of UK's most prolific railway authors, John Scott Morgan. He explains how he first got writing, what research is like and why he's now helping publisher Pen&Sword commission new works. Listen here: www.vectisradio.com/podcast/catc...

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Waltham Forest Archives @lbwfarchives.bsky.social · 13d

Walthamstow station in 1961. Built in 1894, the station was renamed Walthamstow Queen's Road in 1968. #Railway200
📷 ©Vestry House Museum, from collection available in our Searchroom.

Walthamstow station in 1961.

Photo ©Vestry House Museum, from collection available in our Searchroom.

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OldRailwayAccidents @rwldproject.bsky.social · 13d

🚨What's that?🚨

You want FREE access to 17 brilliant #RailwayHistory articles from the @jtransporthist.bsky.social?

All yours!

For #Railway200 the JTH has put together a virtual collection of articles, & until 15 October they're free!

Download & read now: journals.sagepub.com/topic/collec...

Cover of the Journal of Transport History. A dark blue background, white sans-serif text, with 10 small images of various forms of transport & mobility – an airship, a bridge, a compass, a shoe, a propeller aeroplane, an early pneumatic tyre, bicycle gears, a steam locomotive boiler, a tunnel and a late pneumatic tyre.

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Brian Groom @groomb.bsky.social · 12d

The Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, opened on this day 1825. Its first line linked collieries near Shildon with Darlington and Stockton. (Painting of opening day by Terence Cuneo, 1949, National Railway Museum.)

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Art UK @artukdotorg.bsky.social · 12d

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the modern railway 🚂

In June 'Train Landscape’ by Eric Ravilious topped the @railway200.bsky.social vote for the UK’s favourite railway artwork!

Read more 👉 artuk.org/discover/sto...

📷 @abdnartmuseums.bsky.social #Railway200

Watercolour of a train interior with hills through the windows

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