"London is a modern Babylon."
In the Victorian era, from 1837 until Queen Victoria's death in 1901, Britain's capital was known as "Dirty Old London". Tens of thousands of horses plied the streets, leaving manure and urine everywhere; houses had reeking cesspools under them that filled the Thames with raw sewage; soot and smoke filled the air; and the pea soup makes it difficult to see, but please — mind your step in Whitechapel...
London's population increased more than fivefold from the start of the century to the end, so it was overcrowded and congested. The poor lived in a Wretched Hive of slum tenements, pawnshops, taverns, brothels, and Opium Dens, amidst thieves, pickpockets, soot-faced urchins and Cockney flower girls. Merchants sold cheap gin and lurid penny-dreadful stories. The clank of steam-powered machinery from the shipbuilding yards and port echoed in the streets.
The power of the wealthy aristocracy was waning, as middle-class merchants became increasingly influential in London, which was Britain's financial center. For the well-off, sexual morals were prudish and pious (at least when they weren't discreetly visiting a member of The Oldest Profession). Men wore hats and suits and smoked pipes in parlor rooms. Women wore corsets and poofy dresses.
Fortunately, if you were in trouble (and the situation was suitably intriguing), Sherlock Holmes might take your case, especially if there is a hint that the evil Professor Moriarty was involved. Plebes can refer more mundane matters to the bobbies of Scotland Yard — and no, being maimed by machinery in the workplace doesn't count.
Job prospects in the city's sooty factories increased since the Industrial Revolution, at least until 1872 note and with late nineteenth century safety reforms, urban jobs, like chimney-sweeping, workhouses, and textile mills weren't so bad as the during the start of the industrial era (even when run by bitter old misers). Would you rather be in the poorhouse?
Be wary also of wispy men with capes and strangely pointy teeth, spiritualist cultist con-artists, escaped convicts, mad or mercurial scientists, boarding schools, wide-eyed waifs, serial killers, and suspect meat pies. Also, that strange man you saw might just be your secret uncle's best friend's sister's former roommate's dog. All of which is overseen by Queen Victoria, whose web of agents seemed to have some connection to every sinister conspiracy threading its way through London streets, assuming she's not in their cross hairs.
This is a trope that is disturbingly accurate at times. The Victorian Era also happened in the rest of the country, of course, but, as we all know, Britain Is Only London. It (suitably altered) is also the default setting for Steampunk stories or Gaslamp Fantasy.
Popular tropes from this time period are:
- The Artful Dodger
- Baker Street Regular
- The Fagin
- A Foggy Day in London Town
- Jack the Ripoff
- Mysterious Waif
- Opium Den
- Sherlock Homage
- Street Urchin
The following characters from that period may make frequent cameos:
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The anime and manga Black Butler is set primarily in the Victorian Era, with a dash of Anachronism Stew for taste.
- Count Cain, possibly the Victorian-esque manga.
- Emma: A Victorian Romance largely takes place in Victorian-era London, with the titular Emma being a maid-of-all-work who works for a governess. The series is notable for the creator's meticulous attention to detail about the time and place where the story is set.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood is set in the Victorian Era.
- Goodbye, My Rose Garden is set in England in the year 1900, and several important scenes— such as Hanako and Alice's first meeting— do take specifically in London.
- Moriarty the Patriot is a Sherlock Holmes adaptation set in the late Victorian era (the first chapter in 1866, many of the later ones in 1879, and then a time skip to bring it to 1882).
Audio Plays
- Both The Princess Thieves and its prequel The Christmas Thieves take place in an Alternate History Victorian London.
Comic Books
- The first series of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is largely (though not solely) set in the fictional version of late Victorian London.
- From Hell, which is based on the Jack the Ripper case.
- French comics Basil and Victoria (and the cartoon adaptation, renamed Orson and Olivia) follows two orphans making a living by rat-catching on the streets of Victorian London.
- Predator Nemesis. Ex-British Army Captain Soames is enlisted by Mycroft Holmes and the Diogenes Club to investigate a grisly massacre in an opium den, the killer being identified as "Rakshasa" by the sole survivor. The killer is the same Predator Soames encountered in India years before. Sherlock Holmes is mentioned (Soames is enlisted mainly because Sherlock is "out of the country at the moment", and it's implied that Mycroft is aware of Soames' previous encounter) as well as Jack the Ripper, whom is initially thought to be the culprit by Soames, and is strongly implied by Mycroft to have been killed by the Diogenes Club, but the details of his identity and his exact fate are kept secret from the public.
- Ruse: The city of Partington is almost exactly like Victorian London, except that it's on an alien planet because it's part of the Sigilverse. In the Marvel Comics version, Parlington is simply Victorian London with a No Communities Were Harmed name.
Films — Live-Action
- Around the World in 80 Days (1956) and Around the World in 80 Days (2004), being based on the Jules Verne novel, start and end in London.
- Doctor Jekyll and Sister Hyde is set in London, like the novel that it draws upon, although it introduces the Edinburgh-based real-life body-snatchers Burke and Hare, among other changes.
- From Hell — as with the source comic (see above).
- Gaslight is set in London of 1875. The movie won the Academy Awards for Best Art Direction that year.
- Mary Reilly is another derivative of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
- Instead of the original novel's Paris, The Phantom of the Opera (1962) is set in London during the late Victorian era.
- Many Sherlock Holmes adaptations, although almost as many modernize him — even long before the recent TV treatments. Holmes films made in the 1920s were often set in the then-present day. The Basil Rathbone films started out in Victorian London, then switched to a contemporary setting after a Studio Hop.
- Topsy-Turvy, a movie about Gilbert and Sullivan and the staging of their operatta The Mikado.
- London is the setting for part of the second and third act of The Wolfman (2010).
Literature
- Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody stories start in this period and move through The Gay '90s into World War I. But Amelia and her husband (though notably not her children) retain their Victorian London sensibilities throughout. Most of their adventures actually happen in Egypt, as they are archaeologists.
- Anno Dracula is the Victorian Age if Queen Victoria became a vampire.
- The Arcane Society novels written by Amanda Quick fall into this era, whereas the novels that the same author wrote under the name Jayne Ann Krentz are modern era, and Jayne Castle are futuristic.
- Around the World in Eighty Days starts and ends in London.
- Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White, also adapted for television by the BBC in 2011.
- Diogenes Club stories starring Charles Beauregard, before he became the Old Man to Edwin Winthrop:
- Dodger and the non-fiction spin-off Dodger's Guide to London.
- Dracula: The Bram Stoker novel and many of its adaptations.
- Ankh-Morpork on the Discworld is more like modern New York set in Victorian London, with bits of Renaissance Florence. And dwarfs. And trolls. There are even a few neurotic vampires with hilarious accents.
- Many of the works of Charles Dickens, to the extent that such settings are often described as "Dickensian." Not all of Dickens' novels qualify, technically speaking, though. Little Dorrit takes place in 1826 and The Pickwick Papers in 1827-8, in the Georgian Era. Those were published in the Victorian years, though, and at least once Dickens made an anachronistic reference to "Her Majesty" or some other development that had taken place between the time they were set and the time he was writing. He also wrote things like Hard Times, which is set Oop North.Those taking place in Victorian London include:
- The Doll Factory, a historical fiction novel (and Paramount+ adaptation) involving the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in the run-up to the Great Exhibition of 1851.
- The Empire of Corpses takes place in an alternate Victorian era where the Industrial Revolution is powered by reanimated cadavers called "Frankensteins".
- Sarah Waters's Fingersmith, published in 2002 and made into a BBC drama in 2005, is a gay and lesbian take on the setting, with dips into the mental health tropes of the era, including a stereotypical Bedlam House plot and a man after an inheritance.
- The Gemma Doyle series takes place here.
- Hetty Feather is set in Victorian London for most of the first book.
- The Infernal Devices, prequel trilogy to the Mortal Instruments series, takes place here.
- Vampires, Scones and Edmund Herondale, one of the short stories of The Bane Chronicles, also takes place here.
- Part 2 of Loki: Where Mischief Lies is set in 19th century London where Loki is sent on a mission by Odin. Many of the descriptions mention how dirty the city is.
- Molly Hughes's A London Family trilogy does for middle-class London what Flora Thompson's Lark Rise To Candleford did for rural England at largely the same time (1870s-90s). Thompson and Hughes even wrote their books at the same time (1930s).
- A Memoir by Lady Trent: Lady Trent's home base is in Falchester, her Low Fantasy world's equivalent of London, and the technology and social attitudes are similar to Victorian ones. Most of the action takes place in foreign countries, though.
- Mr Warren's Profession takes place half in Victorian London and half in Victorian Manchester.
- Anne Perry's mystery novels are very conscious attempts to subvert the common Victorian stereotypes, by playing up the tension between facade and the reality of human emotion. When this works, it works brilliantly; however, when it doesn't, the result tends to be lurid melodrama that makes LeFanu look plausible.
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
- This is the setting of the majority of the Raffles stories.
- Some of the mirror gates in The Stoneheart Trilogy lead to this era. Arguably the most important one leads to the Frost Fair, 1888, where it turns out that it's true that "you can't change the past, even if it hasn't happened yet".
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is sort-of one of the trope codifiers.
- The Time Machine and most of its adaptations feature this as the Time Traveler's own era.
- One of the downtime locations of Time Scout. The two latter books take place during Jack the Ripper's time of operation.
- A majority of Tipping the Velvet is set in Victorian London.
- Undead Girl Murder Farce is set at the end of 19th-century London.
- The War of the Worlds centers around the exodus of London at one point. And it's where the Martians die. In 1898.
- The second trilogy of the Welkin Weasels depicts a furry version of Sherlock Holmes—not connected in any way to The Great Mouse Detective or Sherlock Hound, but a weasel by the name of Montegu Sylver living in a Victorian London Fantasy Counterpart Culture full of furries.
- The Witch Watch is set here for the most part.
Live-Action TV
- The 1900 House is a short Historical Re-Creation series where a modern (1999) English family roleplay living as a middle-class family in late Victorian London. It was the first on a series dealing with different time periods.
- The Bleak Old Shop Of Stuff, being a Sound-to-Screen Adaptation of Bleak Expectations.
- Though set in the 1950's and 1960's, Call the Midwife makes frequent reference to Victorian London, as many of their district nursing patients are elderly people who lived through it. A recurring theme is the horror of the Victorian workhouse, with former inhabitants known to let out a haunting scream referred to as the "workhouse howl."
- Carnival Row is set in the Burgue, a Victorian-esque Gaslamp Fantasy city-state.
- Dickensian, a drama series that brings together iconic characters created by Charles Dickens in one neighbourhood.
- A not uncommon destination for Doctor Who: "The Evil of the Daleks", "The Talons of Weng-Chiang", "Ghost Light", "The Unquiet Dead", "Tooth and Claw", "The Next Doctor", and "Deep Breath" have all been set in the Victorian era. "A Good Man Goes to War" has a short scene in Victorian London and two characters from the era are prominently featured. Even knockoffs of Victorian London have been seen: "The Ultimate Foe" was set in a simulation of Victorian London (long story), and "A Christmas Carol" was set in Victorian London IN SPACE! Then the Mark Gatiss-penned episode "The Crimson Horror" took us to Victorian Yorkshire.
- Forever protagonist Henry Morgan became immortal in 1814, and there are numerous flashbacks. Most notable for the Victorian Era are his wife's reappearance in 1865 and Henry being consulted on the Jack the Ripper case in 1888.
- Given that it concerns Jack the Ripper, The Outer Limits (1995) episode "Ripper" takes place in London in 1888.
- Penny Dreadful a Gothic Horror story which uses 1880's London as its default setting. Though later seasons branch out a bit.
- Quacks is a sitcom about four Victorian doctors.
- Ripper Street is based on the Jackthe Ripper killings.
- Sanctuary uses this often in flashbacks to Helen Magnus and The Five, one of whom was in fact Jack the Ripper (rounding out the group were the Invisible Man, Sherlock Holmes, and Nikola Tesla).
Music
- The cello rock band Rasputina uses imagery from this period in their songs, and their website even claims that the band was created in 1891.
Radio
- Radio comedy series Bleak Expectations parodies this trope up one side of the workhouse and down the other.
- Audio fantasy-adventure series The Springheel Saga, based on the Victorian urban legend of Spring-Heeled Jack.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- One of the domains of Ravenloft, the city of Paridon, aptly enough for a Gothic setting, is Victorian London, including a Jack the Ripper Expy.
- The Masque of the Red Death alternate setting is entirely set in the Victorian Era, and centers on London. One of Ravenloft's domains, Odiare, was taken from Gothic Earth.
- In Kerberos Club this Victorian society of (super)heroes has its headquarters in London throughout the age. Towards the end of the 1800s it's them that saves the city from an Atlantean attack and a robot uprising.
- The appropriately-titled Victoriana RPG, from Cubicle 7 Games, uses this setting (with a few fantasy modifications) as a jumping-off point.
- Victorian Age: Vampire covers the era from 1880 to 1897. London in this era is the standard against which the Kindred measure all other cities—and also a deeply dangerous domain where only the savviest survive its politics.
- Victorian Lost, a historical setting for Changeling: The Lost, focuses on Victorian England in the 1890s.
Theme Parks
- The tourist attraction The London Dungeons in London has some areas themed this way.
- San Francisco's Great Dickens Christmas Fair.
Video Games
- City of Haze and 13th street in Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin.
- The moments of Alice: Madness Returns not set in Wonderland are set in Victorian London, aka The Real World for Alice.
- Dishonored: Dunwall is based on London circa 1666, just after the Great Fire, during the last parts of the Black Plague - timeshifted to the 19th Century.
- Wizard101: The world of Marleybone is an Expy of this mixed with Steampunk. Oh, yeah, and the people are all dogs, cats, rats, or the occasional frog.
- The city from The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is most likely Victorian London, given the visuals of the place, but nothing is ever stated.
- The setting for Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, sequel to Amnesia: The Dark Descent.
- The browser game Fallen London is set in Victorian London after the city was stolen by bats and buried a mile underground. Victorian tropes abound, as do cameos from Public Domain Characters.
- Assassin's Creed Syndicate and its companion novel Assassin's Creed: Underworld both take place here.
- Fable III features a fantasy equivalent, along with a corresponding Victorian Britain. The city of Bowerstone is right in the middle of an industrial revolution and with your influence you can turn into a Wretched Hive or, with a great deal of effort and Guide Dang It!, into a thriving metropolis.
- The setting for one of the waxworks in Waxworks (1992), where your twin brother is none other than Jack the Ripper.
- Most of the Vermillion Watch games are set here.
- Everyone in the main scenario A New Home of Frostpunk come from here, albeit with a Steampunk bent, and as of the start of the game displaced north to the Arctic with an added helping of apocalyptic Endless Winter. The social issues explored in some scenarios of the game, however, very much reflect historical Victorian England, with the desperation of surviving abrupt climate change forcing people of disparate classes to work together—or die ignobly keeping alive old class conflicts.
- The Great Ace Attorney features this and Meiji-era Japan as its setting.
Web Comics
- minus.: This strip
through time travel.
- The main setting for Mayonaka Densha, though also through time travel.
- Zatanna & the Ripper primarily takes place in 1888 London and follows time-traveling sorceress Zatanna as she attempts to solve the mystery of Jack the Ripper.
Western Animation
- Disenchantment: Steamland, with its entire Steampunk/Dieselpunk aesthetic, looks a lot like Victorian London (but with flying airships and other crazy advanced technology).
- The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror XV": The "Four Beheadings and a Funeral" story in this episode is this trope applied to the show.
