#but it was already so long

[thethirdromana]

Some context for the 1890s

I thought it might be fun to look into the period when Dracula was written and set in a little more detail.

Key facts

In 1897, the population of the UK was just under 40m - so about 60% of what it is today. (By contrast the US population at the time was just 21% of what it is today). Only about 6m of them had the right to vote - about 40% of adult men.

With a population of 6m, London was the largest city in the world and would be for another 20 years.

Politics and imperialism

The British Empire wasn't yet at its peak, which would be at some point between 1913 and 1922 depending on whether you define it by land or population. This was the time of the Scramble for Africa - in the 1890s alone, Britain colonised the countries that are now Uganda, Zanzibar, Malawi, Botswana, Zimbabwe, parts of Sudan and parts of South Africa. (Ish - matching 1890s borders to modern ones is tricky).

All the same, the sense of effortless British dominance was fading, because countries like Germany, France and the USA were starting to catch up. In 1896, the book 'Made in Germany' by Ernest Edwin Williams was a bestseller, bemoaning that cheaper German goods were crowding out British ones in shops. (It's available for free online; just google it if you're interested.) Here's 1890s Berlin:

Britain was only just emerging from what the Victorians called "The Great Depression" from the 1870s to early 1890s. The wealthiest and most powerful country in the world didn't always feel that way to the people living in it.

Alongside anxieties about Britain's place in the world, the other major political topic which dominated the 1890s was the question of Irish Home Rule - essentially whether Ireland should be allowed its own parliament and responsibility for domestic affairs while still remaining part of the UK. The Second Home Rule Bill passed the Commons in 1893 but was defeated in the Lords. Here's 1890s Dublin:

Society

Less than a percentage of the British population would have been people of colour. The 1921 census showed just 75,000 people born in India - 1897 wouldn't have been much different. All the same, the University of Oxford - i.e. one of the most elite institutions in the country - had its first black student as long ago as 1873.

This was a period of growing rights and freedoms in the UK (starting from a very low base). In 1891, children under 11 were banned from working in factories; in 1893, education was made free and compulsory for children up to age 11; in 1882, the Married Women's Property Act allowed married women to own and control property in their own right. Many socialist and trade unionist organisations were founded at this time, including a precursor to the Labour Party.

A social concern at this time were the "surplus women" - there was perceived to be a relative excess of women compared with men, prompting fears they wouldn't be able to marry and would have to work. Women were about 40% of the labour force.

If a man and a woman got engaged but the man then broke it off, the woman could sue him for "breach of promise" as this was considered a binding legal contract. The woman could break the engagement with no legal penalty. (You might recognise this as the basis for several Jeeves and Wooster plotlines).

The fertility rate was falling fast - from an average of nearly 5 children per woman in 1880 to 4 in 1895 (this would fall to 2 by 1930). Around 1 in 5 children died before the age of 5, and around 1 in 200 births resulted in the death of the mother.

Daily life and prices

There were only a handful of cars on British roads - so when Mina says she and Lucy "drove up to the house", she means by horse, not by car. But there were ~25,000km of railways in the UK, compared with about 17,000km today.

The rise of the railways and people actually getting days off meant that this was the golden age of trips to the British seaside. Train fares were a penny per mile, meaning that London to Whitby cost about 20s or a week's labour for a solicitor's clerk, with the purchasing power of £64 today.

As a full-blown solicitor, my guess (though it's only a guess) is that Jonathan is earning about twice that. A female teacher's salary was around £75 a year or 28s a week. A housemaid would earn just £10 a year, though she would get bed and board as well.

The first edition of a novel cost about a shilling and reprints cost even less - as little as a penny or two for the cheapest books. Literacy was nearly universal in the UK.

Also available for a penny were magazines like the hugely popular Tit-Bits, which was the first periodical to sell over a million copies in the UK. It consisted of short, mostly human interest snippets of information, as well as short stories. Lucy and Mina probably wouldn't read Tit-Bits, but Mr Swales might.

References, youtube links and a couple of bonuses for fanfiction writers on my original post here.

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[krowbby]

Ankh-Morpork Dashboard Simulator

happy 40th anniversary everyone 🥳🥳

🌅peach-bi-street

who’s that watchman who’s kinda skrunkly

🐀↺riverrat Follow

helen. 

HELEN. ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT NOBBY NOBBS.

🌅↺peach-bi-street

oh yeah

#are you gonna look at me and tell me that im WRONG?

24 notes

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590 notes

🚹humantwitter Follow

4,981 notes

💌postal-service-top Follow

saw the postmaster today in his stupid gold suit. hes so hot

🌚↺lesbianbaker

i don’t get why people say this he’s the most average looking guy ever. his WIFE however

#you know that post that’s like ur at a lesbian bar and a hot older woman is smoking #and ur like. ‘can yuo put that out on me’ #yeah

120 notes

🥁evenmoremendeddrum Follow

do you guys think the patrician has a secret blog

🛤️↺makeyefret Follow

No, but I bet his secretary is on studyblr

🐶↺wufflesgirl Follow

are you kidding me the patrician is definitely on tumblr. brb committing treason so i can compliment his shoelaces

🥁↺evenmoremendeddrum Follow

peer-reviewed tags

#lord vetinari if ur reading this is legally a joke #wear an owl pin if ur one of us

🏚️↺ankhmorporkheritageposts Follow

Ankh-Morpork Heritage Post

1,074,228 notes

trainhoe-deactivated19890205

hot take but i kind of think the guild of assassins and thieves are problematic. like one of them you could ruin someone’s life and the other one you’re literally KILLING people. i know rich people are delusional but i can’t believe they literally think the best school for their kids is murder college.

🐲essential-dragons Follow

assassins got them

20,391 notes

[astearisms]

fionna and cake drawings before and after watching the episodes so far. it’s nostalgic and somehow cathartic and poignant and relatable and—it just started

[dozydawn]

Fenton Vaseline Glass Snail, Vintage Yellow Opalescent Uranium Glass

[qiinamii]

races and naps

[thankstothe]

this show rewires you fundamentally in 60 seconds and then just goes on to have more seasons. audacity

[improvapocalyps]

You have 90 minutes to complete. (original poem: r.a.)

In participation of the MCYT Recursive Exchange 2024 hosted by @mcytrecursive!

Inspired by know that all my love will be your breath (i will save you when your lights go out)

[text under cut]

1. Have you ever been in love? (Please circle your answer.) a. It's me and him b. Our hearts beat in sync c. Our lives intertwined

2. Do you understand what you’ve done? (Please circle your answer.) a. I couldn't do anything b. I lost my balance c. I doomed us both

3. It's been god knows how long since you felt phantom hands on your neck and there is no one in sight. If you were soul-bound to him and both of you died at the same time then why are you still waiting in the void? Please answer clearly, in full sentences. (Not a correct answer：I just wanted to see him one more time).

4. Define two (2)： Fate | The feeling of his forehead against yours Curse | The moment you realise he isn't linked to you anymore

5. True or False： i. It was your fault. ii. You wish you had met him under different circumstances. iii. You can’t regret a single moment that you had him. iv. You would do it all over again if you could. v. It ended long before either of you said anything.

thumbnails:

sketch cover thing for imgur link:

[wall-e-gorl]

Reblog after voting please!

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

finally at that age where i'm thinking i should get a tattoo. not bc i feel strongly about it, just seems like a waste not to. i've got so much skin i'm not using

[lancteu]

this has drained me of my will to live

[allysketches]

uh, I don't know if crowley and aziraphale know of this popular human custom... um, hugging, I believe – but I think they'd like it a lot actually 🥺

but honestly the fact we never saw them hugging, not even once (yet!!... I hope)... a crime, really 😔

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF movie Mike meets Jeremy Fitzgerald

[funkycloewn]

The aftermath:

The reason why Jax is intimidated by Ragatha lol

Moral of the story: Don't foolishly joke around like that smh

Credit to @sm-baby for the Carnival AU!

[lesbianviolet]

happy to report that im sooooooooooooooooo normal ^-^ and will continue to be so

[infernal-lamb]

can we get some narilamb from you?

FINE! here's this sketch comic

Cheating Judases, Doubting Thomases