Forgotten Author Who Once Outsold the Literary Giant – Interview

What the Dickens? Sunday Post interview with yours truly about The Author Who Outsold Dickens with Sally McDonald William Harrison Ainsworth is the 19th-Century writer most of us haven’t heard of. Literary historian, editor and novelist Dr Stephen Carver tells Sally McDonald The Honest Truth about why the great man is so unknown nowadays. Why did…

The Real Harry Flashman

Speaking of Victorian pornography, here's an extract from my new book, The 19th Century Underworld, published by Pen & Sword Books... Edward Sellon was a particularly colourful public school Dugdale writer. A subaltern in the 4th Regiment of the East India Company Madras Infantry and a libertine of the old school, Sellon could have been…

The Pornographer Royal

I was interviewed by Southwark News this week, talking about Henry Spencer Ashbee, Victorian businessman and erotomaniac... There are quite a few unusual things about Henry Spencer Ashbee, a Victorian gentleman who was born in the Rising Sun inn on Blackfriars Road in 1834. He was a self-made man and an only child in an…

Author delves into the dark past of city’s infamous murderer

Did I tell you I got in the local paper...? He was one of the most infamous killers in the country and a wax effigy of John Thurtell was displayed in Madame Tussaud’s ‘Chamber of Horrors’ well into the 20th century... such was the horrific nature of his crime. The gruesome and fascinating story of…