--- product_id: 20495121 title: "How to Be a Victorian: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Victorian Life" price: "153.22 DT" currency: TND in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.tn/products/20495121-how-to-be-a-victorian-a-dawn-to-dusk-guide store_origin: TN region: Tunisia --- # How to Be a Victorian: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Victorian Life **Price:** 153.22 DT **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** How to Be a Victorian: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Victorian Life - **How much does it cost?** 153.22 DT with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.tn](https://www.desertcart.tn/products/20495121-how-to-be-a-victorian-a-dawn-to-dusk-guide) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description Named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR A “revelatory” ( Wall Street Journal ) romp through the intimate details of Victorian life, by an historian who has cheerfully endured them all. Lauded by critics, How to Be a Victorian is an enchanting manual for the insatiably curious, the “the cheapest time-travel machine you’ll find” (NPR). Readers have fallen in love with Ruth Goodman, an historian who believes in getting her hands dirty. Drawing on her own firsthand adventures living in re-created Victorian conditions, Goodman serves as our bustling guide to nineteenth-century life. Proceeding from daybreak to bedtime, this charming, illustrative work “imagines the Victorians as intrepid survivors” ( New Republic ) of the most perennially fascinating era of British history. From lacing into a corset after a round of calisthenics to slipping opium to the little ones, Goodman’s account of Victorian life “makes you feel as if you could pass as a native” ( The New Yorker ). 131 illustrations, 8 pages of color Review: I do NOT want to be a Victorian! - I DVRed all the PBS episodes of Victoria and read this book in preparation to binge watch them. I must say, this book just sucked all of the romanticism out of being alive during the Victorian era. I have long been fascinated by this time period and I am partial to fiction and historical fiction set during the bulk of the 1800's. After reading this book, I realize that I would only like to be a wealthy Victorian but even that has some serious drawbacks. How to Be a Victorian is truly a dawn to dusk guide to life during the reign of Queen Victoria. This is a very well researched book with a lot of detail. The chapters take you from waking in the morning, hygiene, clothing and fashion, work, leisure, exercise, food, education, medical care, and bedtime. Ms. Goodman further breaks this down into an explanation of how these activities and daily rituals vary for the different social classes and the sexes. She also discusses social and economic changes across the period of Victoria's reign. The book is aided by drawings and photos, though the author's written descriptions are quite thorough. Additionally, Ms. Goodman writes from the perspective of a person who has actually recreated the Victorian experience. She has even gone so far as to inflict this experience on her young daughter! She is taking history and research to another level, which adds to the realism. I did debate about how to rate this book. I was going to rate it four stars because parts of the book were a bit too detailed for me and I found myself skimming the bits that did not interest me as much. Personally, I was not that interested in transportation or industry. However, I really loved the detail dedicated to clothing, education, and medicine. Therefore, I decided to rate it five stars for overall information and research. The writing style was excellent and engaging. If you have any interest in the Victorian era, this is a great book and it will enhance your reading of other books set during that time period. Review: If you're a Victoriana fan who asks "I wonder what was it REALLY like to....." then this is the book for you!! - Great book - I don't know why it's getting knocked for too much detail...'dawn to dusk' kind of implies it's looking at the minutiae of everyday Victorian life, doesn't it?? I think the BEST PART is the commentary that Ms. Goodman inserts into every section/portion of the day. For everyone who has ever read history & then asked "I wonder what it was like to use an outhouse in the winter??" or "what would it be like to lace tightly into a corset, every day, no matter what you were doing?" or "just how bad was it to wash clothes with tubs and mangles?" - well...read this book to hear from one who has!! It was amazing - so many of us history buffs wish we could 'go back for a while & live in that time' - Ms. Goodman has done it!! Her research is spot on, her 'user' commentary is thoughtful and realistic - this was a fun book to read & one of those books that you look forward to when enough time passes so that you can read it again!! I was able to live vicariously through Ruth Goodman's experience and I'm very thankful that she shared it with us! I will definitely read more of what she writes!! ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #78,271 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #23 in England History #343 in Historical Study (Books) #1,035 in World History (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 2,828 Reviews | ## Images ![How to Be a Victorian: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Victorian Life - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71SkaHVptnL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I do NOT want to be a Victorian! *by S***S on March 23, 2017* I DVRed all the PBS episodes of Victoria and read this book in preparation to binge watch them. I must say, this book just sucked all of the romanticism out of being alive during the Victorian era. I have long been fascinated by this time period and I am partial to fiction and historical fiction set during the bulk of the 1800's. After reading this book, I realize that I would only like to be a wealthy Victorian but even that has some serious drawbacks. How to Be a Victorian is truly a dawn to dusk guide to life during the reign of Queen Victoria. This is a very well researched book with a lot of detail. The chapters take you from waking in the morning, hygiene, clothing and fashion, work, leisure, exercise, food, education, medical care, and bedtime. Ms. Goodman further breaks this down into an explanation of how these activities and daily rituals vary for the different social classes and the sexes. She also discusses social and economic changes across the period of Victoria's reign. The book is aided by drawings and photos, though the author's written descriptions are quite thorough. Additionally, Ms. Goodman writes from the perspective of a person who has actually recreated the Victorian experience. She has even gone so far as to inflict this experience on her young daughter! She is taking history and research to another level, which adds to the realism. I did debate about how to rate this book. I was going to rate it four stars because parts of the book were a bit too detailed for me and I found myself skimming the bits that did not interest me as much. Personally, I was not that interested in transportation or industry. However, I really loved the detail dedicated to clothing, education, and medicine. Therefore, I decided to rate it five stars for overall information and research. The writing style was excellent and engaging. If you have any interest in the Victorian era, this is a great book and it will enhance your reading of other books set during that time period. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ If you're a Victoriana fan who asks "I wonder what was it REALLY like to....." then this is the book for you!! *by N***B on February 9, 2016* Great book - I don't know why it's getting knocked for too much detail...'dawn to dusk' kind of implies it's looking at the minutiae of everyday Victorian life, doesn't it?? I think the BEST PART is the commentary that Ms. Goodman inserts into every section/portion of the day. For everyone who has ever read history & then asked "I wonder what it was like to use an outhouse in the winter??" or "what would it be like to lace tightly into a corset, every day, no matter what you were doing?" or "just how bad was it to wash clothes with tubs and mangles?" - well...read this book to hear from one who has!! It was amazing - so many of us history buffs wish we could 'go back for a while & live in that time' - Ms. Goodman has done it!! Her research is spot on, her 'user' commentary is thoughtful and realistic - this was a fun book to read & one of those books that you look forward to when enough time passes so that you can read it again!! I was able to live vicariously through Ruth Goodman's experience and I'm very thankful that she shared it with us! I will definitely read more of what she writes!! ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Great Read, But Almost Too Detailed *by K***R on March 19, 2015* Would have been 5 stars had she not provided so much detail. Best thing about the author is that she actually tried to live replications of what her Victorian subjects had to live through. That is truly honest and thorough journalism. A lot of skimming makes for a much better read. Well worth it for anyone who wants to know more about what life was really like for their favorite authors and the characters they created from Austen and the Brontes through Hardy and Dickens to Wilde and Shaw. She is always careful to illustrate the differences between what the lowest to uppermost classes had to suffer through. Life was much shorter, especially for birthing women and workers in dangerous workplaces, for instance. But it made little difference if you were upper class or lower class when the dangers of giving birth were generally fairly equal. Class made the most difference when one was able to hire someone else to do their wash and cook their meals. This book makes today's reader joyful and thankful for little things like microwave ovens, flushing toilets, tap water, and frozen food. Imagine living before anyone realized germs caused diseases and infection. Lower class children all started working 10 to 12 hour days at age five or six and looked forward to being old enough to work 16 hours at least six days a week, every week until they died. First child labor law around 1830 limited work hours for those 10 and under to 8 hours a day, six days a week 52 weeks a year. Extremely difficult to comprehend and truly makes us thankful. But unless we try to do something about it, there are and always will be places in the world that still function as if it were still the Victorian Age in England. ## Frequently Bought Together - How to Be a Victorian: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Victorian Life - How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life - How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England: A Guide for Knaves, Fools, Harlots, Cuckolds, Drunkards, Liars, Thieves, and Braggarts --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.tn/products/20495121-how-to-be-a-victorian-a-dawn-to-dusk-guide](https://www.desertcart.tn/products/20495121-how-to-be-a-victorian-a-dawn-to-dusk-guide) --- *Product available on Desertcart Tunisia* *Store origin: TN* *Last updated: 2026-07-16*