Michael Wheeler is a leading cultural and literary historian and presently a Visiting Professor of English Literature at the University of Southampton. His many critically acclaimed books include the prize-winning Death and the Future Life in Victorian Literature and Theology (1990), Ruskin's God (1999), The Old Enemies (2006) and St John and the Victorians (2011) – all published by Cambridge University Press – and, most recently, The Athenæum, published by Yale University Press in 2020.

'This lively account shows how a single year came to epitomise so many of the overarching themes of the Victorian age. An inviting read even for those already familiar with the episodes depicted, this is a meticulous and thoroughly-researched tour de force of scholarship by an author who always has new things to say.' Rohan McWilliam, Professor of Modern British History, Anglia Ruskin University

• Introduction; Part I. Public Scandals: 1. Opening Mazzini's mail: Sir James Graham and the Post Office; 2. The railway juggernaut: Delane, Dickens and the press; 3. Poor law bastille: the Andover workhouse scandal; Part II. Private Lives: 4. Love by post: Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning; 5. Letters from the Continent: Ruskin in Italy; 6. Letters of the living and the dead: Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle; Part III. Oxford Movements: 7. Established church in crisis: William George Ward and the Oxford Movement; 8. A dangerous correspondence: Newman on the road to Rome; Part IV. Irish Questions: 9. Educating papist priests: Gladstone and the Maynooth grant; 10. From our own Commissioner: Daniel O'Connell and The Times; 11. A prime minister resigns: Peel and the Corn Laws; Afterword.

Michael Wheeler is a leading cultural and literary historian and presently a Visiting Professor of English Literature at the University of Southampton. His many critically acclaimed books include the prize-winning Death and the Future Life in Victorian Literature and Theology (1990), Ruskin's God (1999), The Old Enemies (2006) and St John and the Victorians (2011) – all published by Cambridge University Press – and, most recently, The Athenæum, published by Yale University Press in 2020.

'This lively account shows how a single year came to epitomise so many of the overarching themes of the Victorian age. An inviting read even for those already familiar with the episodes depicted, this is a meticulous and thoroughly-researched tour de force of scholarship by an author who always has new things to say.' Rohan McWilliam, Professor of Modern British History, Anglia Ruskin University

• Introduction; Part I. Public Scandals: 1. Opening Mazzini's mail: Sir James Graham and the Post Office; 2. The railway juggernaut: Delane, Dickens and the press; 3. Poor law bastille: the Andover workhouse scandal; Part II. Private Lives: 4. Love by post: Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning; 5. Letters from the Continent: Ruskin in Italy; 6. Letters of the living and the dead: Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle; Part III. Oxford Movements: 7. Established church in crisis: William George Ward and the Oxford Movement; 8. A dangerous correspondence: Newman on the road to Rome; Part IV. Irish Questions: 9. Educating papist priests: Gladstone and the Maynooth grant; 10. From our own Commissioner: Daniel O'Connell and The Times; 11. A prime minister resigns: Peel and the Corn Laws; Afterword.