Hello Dr. Mangham!

I think that when I hear "early forensics", "crime", and "Victorian Popular culture", I'm not alone in instantly thinking of Sherlock Holmes. In the modern era, there is so much discussion about the "CSI Effect", the "Perry Mason Effect" and the influence of police and courtroom dramas on how the public view and understand the legal system and police work. I've read that Perry Mason especially, being an early courtroom drama, has massive influence on how jurors expected trials to be conducted, which in turn changed how prosecutors did, in fact, conduct themselves. I don't want to dwell too much on that though, as my actual question is whether there was a "Sherlock Holmes Effect" which similarly influenced the perception of 'law and order'? Obviously there aren't perfect parallels Holmes not being the lawyer, or the police, even when working in cooperation, but nevertheless it would seem that his approach to crime solving would have undue influence on people's expectations and perception of crime, and how to solve them, so much of an effect was there?

Hi, Dr. Mangham! Thanks for this AMA!

Most AskHistorians readers are not professional historians, and "literary sources" are one of the most accessible types of primary source for everyone!

Can you talk a little about what it's like to use fiction to do history, especially as an 'outsider historian'? What sorts of methodologies do you use, and how did you learn or develop them?

Is it true that in Victorian London, despite the periods depicted prudishness, it was not uncommon or particularly remarked upon for adult men to hold hands together in public?

I was told a story where apparently it was considered perfectly normal for two fellow soldiers/officers who were friends from the same regiment on home service to be seen strolling through Hyde Park "hand in hand".

What a wonderful range of topics! Thank you so much for doing this AMA, Dr. Mangham! My question will be way too vague I am afraid - could you speak about poisons and poisonings in the Victorian popular culture?

Hi Dr. Mangham, and thanks for doing this AMA.

I was wondering whether Sherlock Holmes' methods of solving crimes in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's books would have been considered realistic at the time they were written. For instance, would readers have said "wow, that's amazing, he's so observant", or would more of them have been like "oh that would never work because of <Victorian England phenomenon that is no longer applicable today>"? Thanks in advance!

The character Fagin is usually referred to pejoratively as "The Jew" in Oliver Twist. Was Dickens particularly anti-Semitic, or merely expressing the common sentiment of the time?

I am curious regarding the connection of popular fiction and children/youths during this particular time period, in particularly with regards to the depiction of death and violence. Would children/youths have been particularly drawn to popular fiction with particularly gruesome content?

Dr Mangham!

1. Often times writers of popular fiction and penny dreadfuls and authors of pornographic or titillating literature were one and the same, working side by side in Grub or Holywell Street. Have you made any observations about authors who dipped into both fields, or used tropes from one genre in another?

2. How do 'horrible violence takes develop as a genre? Is there a reaction against it, like the comic book panic, or are they just laughed at?

3. What attempts were made to regulate or crack down on this market?

Thanks for this Dr Mangham. In Victorian novels (and the early 20th century), rich people suffering tuberculosis seem to have regularly left for the European Alps for health reasons. Is there evidence that being at a high altitude in clear air did help people survive TB longer?

The Communist Party of Britain was founded just a few years after the Luddites were suppressed. Do you think that the two groups had substantial overlap? Were the same disenfranchised young men who felt displaced by mechanization looking for answers with Marxism? Both groups were clearly action-oriented and willing to cause property damage and start riots.

Hi Dr. Mangham! I am curious about how you got into your field. How did you end up specializing in these particular subjects? What did you study in university/grad school? Thank you!

What's one major historical medical advancement that is overlooked by modern society?

How popular and/or subversive was Dickens considered in his day?

Hi Dr. Mangham,

This article quotes Miriam Margolyes and Anne Isba as providing a very unflattering account of Dickens' attitudes toward women. Are these fair views of the man against the backdrop of Victorian England?

From what I remember of Estella, Dickens seems to have shaped her in a kind of femme fatale role (as far as Pip's emotional well-being) but in a way stripped her of agency by making her a conduit through which Miss Havisham could get her revenge. I guess what I'm asking is what was Dicken's relationship with young, pretty women like and how did it show through his fiction?

In terms of attitudes to death, I lived in the UK for a number of years and visited numerous churches and cathedrals and monuments and I don't recall seeing any memorials to ordinary soldiers or seamen in any war before the Boer war. But I did see a number of memorials to captains and the like raised by their families or friends. Was this just happenstance of my observation, or did the expansion of the franchise to working class men make memorializing their sacrifices more important by the Boer War, or was there something else going on?

Hi Dr. Mangham!

During the Victorian era, what was the impact of the British Empire upon popular culture of the day? I am familiar with the Flashman books, of course, and other such adventure stories, but was there a broader interest in colonial themes outside of the military/adventure literary genre? And to what extent was the popular culture of Britain exported to (or imported from) colonial possessions?

And, somewhat related, were there pronounced differences in the popular culture of Ireland and the rest of the UK during the Victorian period?

Hello, Dr. Mangham. I'm currently a history MA student with a strong interest is crime (specifically murder) and print culture in the 19th century U.S. I recently completed a historiography paper on this topic and found Karen Halttunen's Murder Most Foul absolutely fascinating. Assuming you've read it, what do you think of her theory of the "pornography of pain?" Additionally, do you believe the connections between crime and literature in the U.S. and Britain are the same or is the connection different?

I probably have a hundred further questions for you but we'll stick with these for now :)

Have you read The Alienist? If so, how accurate is the portrayal of early forensic science?

Related to /u/Goat_im_Himmel's question (feel free to answer them together), first, what was the interplay between forensics and fiction more broadly? While Sherlock Holmes was the culmination of early detective fiction, he obviously wasn't the first literary detective. I believe that credit for the first modern detective story is usually given to Edgar Allen Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue".

Second, both Conan-Doyle's Holmes and Poe's Dupin seem to prize reason over evidence gathering (though they obviously do both). Dupin even calls his method "ratiocination". Modern forensics, on the other hand, seems to reverse this emphasis, and prizing "gathering and preserving evidence" over "reasoning" from said facts (Conan-Doyle frustratingly often calls deductive reasoning, while most others would call this inductive reasoning). Which was more emphasized in early forensics, gathering facts as today or reasoning from said facts as in the early detective literature?

In Victorian times, how did doctors survive contact with so many sick people, at least before they learnt the importance of cleanliness? Did a lot of students die during training?

I'm watching Taboo at the moment and while it's got a regency setting and a very contemporary perspective, is clearly influenced by gothic horror. But while colonial anxiety is certainly a part of Victorian and Edwardian gothic fiction (I'm thinking of the excruciating racism in Lair of the White Worm specifically, but also ancient curses and revenge in the works of Guy Boothby and Rider Haggard), my question is: do any Victorian writers of gothic horror/fantasy deal with Britain's culpability for the slave trade or for indigenous genocide as overtly as this show does?

I would be very interested to understand how the concept of female psychopathy, or sociopathy, was recognized in Victorian society (e.g. pre-Freud), and how manipulative, emotionally abusive, and gaslighting women were described through time. Specifically, I wonder if there are any signs of sudden realization or enlightenment, either in individual stories of fiction authors or - perhaps more interestingly - progressively through time in the medical or psychological/natural philosophical literature (e.g. traits, such as Machiavellianism)? How were these women identified, "uncovered", and how did one come to terms with what we today know as three separate personality disorders: antisocial, narcissistic, and borderline personality?

Other than the western countries, were there any other countries in the Victorian Era which were seen as major contributors to medicine and medical science?

An unknown virus started effecting mass amounts of people in 1890, what are some of the things a doctor may try to help.