I'm excited to take part again! The challenges this year sound really fun. I'm using the clothing challenge as an excuse to have a look for some frilly blouses on depop 😂
I've already started. I'm working my way through Anthony Trollope's Barchester series, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickins, Alexandre Dumas and Elizabeth Gaskell. This is my first Victober.
Hello Lucy, Excellent idea. You reminded me that I have Selections from George Eliot's Letters edited by Gordon S. Haight on my bookshelves. It is 554 pages long. Practically every letter has an editorial introduction which provides some context, so I am super excited to read this collection. Been meaning to get to this for years! I am planning to re-read Shirley, which I didn't enjoy the first time I read it, but I want to re-evaluate it.
I am SO looking forward to Victober this year! What a great set of prompts. Your challenge is especially exciting to me. I'm a US historian who primarily researches the years from 1845-1945--so I've read letters and diaries from America during the period. It will be wonderful to do some digging to find interesting examples from Britain!
I am a Victober Virgin, this will be my first Victober as a booktuber...I will be reading Dickens "Little Dorrit" (it is on the Dickensians' readalong on Goodreads)....now I need to find my bonnet ;)
Yours is such an interesting challenge - I never much thought about reading the diaries and letters of Victorian folk before, but it will be a great way of getting to know more about the time and people living then. I've never read anything more by Charlotte Bronte than Jane Eyre, so it will be an experience to read Shirley.
I can't express how excited I am for Victober! I just filmed a TBR 😆 I can hardly wait to read Shirley, and you have made me really eager to read letters and diaries from the time!
I am finally going to make time to join in on Victober and I am very excited! I love your challenge, the Elizabeth Gaskell letters sound fascinating. Thank you for listing Queen Victoria's letters, they sound ideal to dip in and out of for this challenge, too.
I’m so excited for Victober this year! The group read of Shirley is absolutely perfect. I started the book last year and got distracted by other novels. I’m looking forward to finishing it and discussing with everyone!
Lucy, I am exceedingly excited for Victober. I love history with all my heart. I write historical fiction and I immensely enjoy thinking about how history developed human nature. I endeavor to read Shirley by Charlotte Bronte because I know it will be one of my favorite books. I fell in love with Jane Eyre and I hope to read all of the Bronte books. I am currently reading The Tenant of Wild-fell Hall by Anne Bronte. Elizabeth Gaskell’s letters seem interesting and I am definitely going to read them next month. This year during Victober, I want to take my time to relish each book I read and observe the beauties created when the words are teeming with the stories. Therefore, I have decided not to set a goal for the number of books I read for Victober. I love you
I am SO EXCITED for Victober this year! I think I will reread Shirley with you! I can't wait to see the amazing content you make surrounding Shirley and Victorian literature in general! ♥
Wonderful news! Your video is very motivating.I have read Shirley during the Brönte reading club 2019 and it was a joy.It is so nice that this book will be on focus during Victober, it is like visiting a beloved person again.
The challenges really are wonderful this year. I look forward to the videos you'll be putting up! I'm glad to be giving Shirley a second chance because it sounds like it really deserves it.
Victorian sci fi and detective sounds lovely. I found a book by an American author who wrote during the Victorian era: Herman Melville. I already read Moby Dick so this time I'm reading Benito Cereno, which is about a Spanish slave ship. I became interested in the parts African Americans played during the Victorian era because of slavery. Anyone who's interested could read The Confession of Frannie Langton, which is set in 1838 in London. It's the story of an ex-slave who is accused of murdering her mistress. The audiobook is read by the author, who has a wonderful accent. There's also a trans element to the story.
My first time participating in this! It sounds wonderful. I think I will start by reading the Group read as Jane Eyre is my all time favorite book and some of Queen Victoria’s letters on the website. Thanks for sharing.
OMG Shirley !!! It is my favourite book too ... It would be really great to read it along with other readers! It would be my 2nd time re-reading it this year
I haven’t the faintest idea of how to find Victorian-esque clothing. 😂 I will be avidly awaiting your video on this. The challenges sound really fun! I’m also very excited for Shirley.
This is my first Victober. I want to tell you about Lord Ronald Gower's Diaries. Lord Ronald Gower (see his Wikipedia page) was an aristocrat, politician, and artist whose diaries are a who’s who of Victorian society. He edited his own journals and published them with photos of his sculptures and places, and detailed indices at the end. The diaries are filled with descriptions, anecdotes, and quotes from letters, etc.. Lord Gower never married, was part of the LGBTQ set, and is reportedly Oscar Wilde’s model for the character Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray. All three diaries are scanned to pdf and are available on Google Books. The final diary, titled Old Diaries 1881-1901, ends with the death of Queen Victoria and was published in 1902. I plan to read My Reminiscences vol. 1 that covers 1845-1872 (vol. 2 covers 1872-1880ish).
I am extremely jolly about Victober. It will be my second Victober participation. Your videos have been always comforting and very uplifting too. The challenges are also thrilling as well. I hope Victober is carried out every year with loads of pambulum, and plentiful participants. It is such a success you have earned and I am very proud of you. There are so many things I want you to say. But that would mean a lengthy comment. I desire you to meet in person someday and to have a charming conversation with you.💕 Love you a lot!😍😘 Can we read a book to fulfill two challenges?
I think I'll try it this year! This is the first Victober where I'd actually have the time and resources to commit to it, and I've been wanting to dive back into my favorite era for novels anyway ^_^ Not sure if I can do the "read a new story by your favorite author" challenge though... I guess I'll have to dig around and see if any of Emily Bronte's juvenalia has been transcribed.
For once, I didn't really participate in Victober (just reading Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Brontë) but I intend to make it a "Brontë end of the year" then a "Brontë 2021". The Brontës are. So. Good !!!
Hello Lucy, how beautifully wonderful you are! I just saw your book the posthumous memoirs of brás cubas, it's the perfect book. I'm a big fan of Machado de Assis, I hope you enjoyed the read! I am deaf brazilian, I love your youtube channel! ❤❤❤❤
I read this book this year it's a stand alone fantasy....small book short ready it's called Tooth and Claw. It's a book about dragons but they live in a Victorian age and follows that edict. Title bloodlines and edict are second only to strength and size. It was sooo good.
This sounds so fun!! I've got one shelf that is mostly full of Victorian novels, so excited to poke around and see how many times I can double-dip for the challenges ;D Oh, and I certainly have the costumes to go with!!
I just commented on a video you did back in May of 2015 and it was your 5th You Tube video and the first time you were seen wearing glasses. Since then you have been wearing glasses in nearly every video and only a very few without glasses. You may wonder why I would notice that and the reason is because I was an optician, now retired after 38 years in the optical business. So I guess you can say that it's in my blood. Anyway glasses really do suite you quite well and you look lovely wearing glasses. Your choice of frame is perfect being a rather thin plastic frame really allows your for your face to be seen very well. You really don't seem to have much of a prescription in your glasses from what I was able to see peeking through your lenses. You're apparently a little shortsighted (nearsighted here in the US) which would be expected with someone that reads so much small print in the books you read. Most people don't realize that doing so much close work, such as reading, tends to cause myopia, or shortsightedness. Since you apparently wear glasses full time, based on your videos, I wonder if you might have an interest in acquiring a few extra pairs of glasses so you can have more variety from day to day as to which glasses you might want to wear on a given day rather than only have one pair to wear fro everything everywhere. A few years before I retired many of my girls, by girls I mean the opticians and optical assistants that I managed had discovered a number of on-line glasses sites. Not surprising that working in an optical store that nearly all of them wore glasses and the only 2 that didn't need glasses because they had perfect vision both wore non-prescription glasses to help promote sales. Opticians and optical assistants get commissions as part of their pay based on sales they make. As each of their glasses were arriving I was able to get a good look at these glasses they were ordering and I was honestly very surprised at the quality of their glasses. I also insisted that they allowed me check how accurate the prescriptions were in their glasses. In every case but one the prescription's were perfect. The one that wasn't perfect was for one of the girls with perfect vision and her glasses came in with a small prescription of -.75 in both eyes. When I told her that her glasses were wrong and that the had a prescription in them she turned slightly red in the face and admitted that she ordered her glasses with that prescription. She said that a few weeks earlier she was running late for work and she forgot her glasses. One of the other girls that wears a weak prescription told her that if she wanted she could borrow her spare pair to wear for the day if the prescription didn't bother her eyes too much. She wore the glasses for the day and she loved the clarity she was able to see with that prescription. She liked it so much that she asked to borrow the glasses a few more times to wear. So when she was placing her order for her glasses she decide to order them with that same prescription as the glasses she had been borrowing. I pointed out that by wearing those glasses she would almost certainly no longer have perfect vision anymore. She said she was aware of that but she liked wearing glasses anyway so it didn't matter that her lasses would now be necessary. I wrote down the names of the 3 sites i liked the best and they are Firmoo, Eye Buy Direct and my favorite Zenni Optical. Since retiring I have placed orders for well over 100 pairs of glasses wit Zenni for my own family as well as many many friends. Zenni has a really nice selection of glasses for just $6.95 and that includes single vision prescription lenses in whatever prescription you may need. They have hundreds more for under $13.00 as well. You can any pair of regular glasses made into prescription sunglasses for $5.00 more. Shipping is a one time charge of $5.00.
Would this diary from the Victorian era, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole count for your challenge? It was written in 1857 by a Jamaican-British woman doctor.
Namaste Kate😊Lovely video😊Just wanted to know if it's okay to read the Letters written by Florence Nightingale who was one of the most influential women during the Victorian age ? Quite excited for this challenge.Happy Reading😊😊😊💖💖💖👍👍👍👍
