The Library’s Acquisitions Department regularly reads UK book reviews searching for worthy additions to the collection, from the latest British mysteries to scholarly non-fiction. We purchase in excess of 200 books annually from overseas—titles not published in the States or whose American release comes long after their UK publication date. Understandably, titles published exclusively in the UK do not get much attention in American magazines and newspapers, and thus may go neglected by readers at the Library. We will periodically use the Library Blog to call attention to a selection of recent purchases from the UK, with hopes that readers will find titles of interest and that these books gain the readership they deserve. —Steven McGuirl & Andrew Corbin, Acquisitions Department

Wise, Sarah / Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty And The Mad-Doctors In Victorian England (Bodley Head, 2012) 362.2 W 

Mckenna, Neil / Fanny And Stella: The Young Men Who Shocked Victorian England (Faber and Faber, 2013) Lobby – Non-fiction 

Two strongly reviewed recent books that both address particular myths about Victorian society are Sarah Wise’s Inconvenient People and Neil McKenna’s Stella and Fanny. Based on hundreds of case histories, Inconvenient People reveals the devastating truth behind the myth of the “madwoman in the attic.” The Victorian era saw the rise of “mad-doctors,” men of dubious medical ethics who were willing to provide the medical opinions necessary to commit inconvenient family members, usually the ones who controlled the purse strings, to insane asylums. According to a review in the Spectator, when reading Inconvenient People “one often feels as if one is actually present at the scenes she describes. There can be no higher praise.” Neil McKenna’s Stella and Fanny is an equally lively read about the trial of two Victorian transvestites, the titular Stella and Fanny, who were arrested in 1870 and put on trial for the crime of buggery. Using court records, contemporary pornography, letters, and other primary sources, McKenna brings the world of Victorian prostitution and the gay subculture of the day, with all of its wonderfully camp slang and customs, into vivid relief. The result is a hugely readable book that garnered many laudatory reviews, such as this one from the Guardian.

Bradford, Richard / The Odd Couple: The Curious Friendship Between Kingsley Amis And Philip Larkin (Robson Press, 2012) 920 B7996 O. 

Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin were two magnificent presences in twentieth century British literary culture, but superficially at least they could not have been more different. Larkin was the melancholy poet who made his living working as a librarian at the University of Hull, while Amis lived the life of the louche literary celebrity. Nonetheless, as Richard Bradford’s aptly titled The Odd Couple attests, the two maintained a lively friendship, mostly via letters, from the time they met as undergraduates at Oxford until Larkin’s death in 1985. Having already written well-received biographies of both Amis and Larkin, Bradford still manages to cast a new light on the friendship between these literary giants, both of whom were difficult, brilliant, and controversial in their own way.

MacGregor, Neil / Shakespeare's Restless World: An Unexpected History in 20 Objects (Allen Lane, 2012) Lobby – Non-fiction

Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, follows up his 2010 book and BBC Radio 4 program, A History of the World in 100 Objects (909 M), with a more focused project: an attempt to understand the first viewers of Shakespeare’s plays and the world they lived in by examining twenty 16th-century objects from the Museum’s collections. A History of the World in 100 Objects had more than 4 million listeners in an average week when it was broadcast in the UK, and the companion book was quite popular here at the Society Library. Read more about Shakespeare's Restless World, including some comments from Mr. MacGregor, in this piece from The Telegraph. 

Watkins, C. S. / The Undiscovered Country: Journeys Among The Dead (Bodley Head, 2013) 393 W

Watkins, a Cambridge historian, has written an acclaimed cultural history of British attitudes towards death. His descriptions and analysis of customs and rituals throughout history illuminate man’s search for understanding of our ultimate fate and show that previous generations lived lives far more conversant with death than our own. In a recent review in the Guardian, Iain Sinclair writes that “Watkins is one of those rare guides who never overstays his welcome. He wears his research lightly as he journeys around the British landscape, teasing out themes and cultural shifts from the particulars of individual lives.” 

Lethbridge, Lucy / Servants: A Downstairs View Of Twentieth-Century Britain (Bloomsbury, 2013) Lobby – Non-fiction

In 1911, 800,000 British households employed staff. In a book that the Spectator calls “empathetic, wide-ranging and well-written,” as well as “enthralling,” Lucy Lethbridge uses diaries and oral testimony to examine the lives of servants whose livelihood generally required that they remain invisible. Reviews in the UK have repeatedly praised the book’s “even-handed” approach, the depth and range of Lethbridge’s research, and her skillful use of colorful anecdotes (who knew that “egg yolks throughout England were diligently centered to grace the breakfast tables of the rich?”). To find more books on the lives of Edwardian-era servants, be sure to read A Visit to the World of Downton Abbey on our Staff Book Recommendations page. 

To see a list of more books recently ordered from the UK, including titles by Julian Barnes, W.G. Sebald, and more, click here.