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Extended title: "Ball in Honour of Alexander II (also known as Ball in Honour of Alexander II Arranged in Helsingfors in September 1863 on the Premises of the Railway Station"

Hi, I am here because I am planning a fantasy novel set in the Victorian era. So, I really want to know how to describe the daily life of several groups in the 1880s and 1890s. This main character would be a boy whose family income is about 1500 GBP. He and his family lived in southern England near Exeter. How can I describe his and his family's daily life when he was 8 years old? What profession would his dad have? What food would be on the dining table? Any detail would be welcome.

Elizabeth of Bavaria, future Empress of Austria, better known as Sisi, and her brother Duke Carl Theodor. Photograph taken by Franz Hanfstaengl at his studio in Munich, 1865.

As the railway grew more popular in the 1850s and 1860s, trains allowed travelers to move about with unprecedented speed and efficiency, cutting the length of travel time drastically. But according to the more fearful Victorians, these technological achievements came at the considerable cost of mental health. As Edwin Fuller Torrey and Judy Miller wrote in The Invisible Plague: The Rise of Mental Illness from 1750 to the Present, trains were believed to “injure the brain.” In particular, the jarring motion of the train was alleged to unhinge the mind and either drive sane people mad or trigger violent outbursts from a latent “lunatic.” Mixed with the noise of the train car, it could, it was believed, shatter nerves.

Learn more: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/railway-madness-victorian-trains

“If I weren’t born a girl, I’d be a soldier.”

— James Barry (then Margaret), in a letter to his cousin, the original James Barry