The Other Victorians: Oskar Jensen & Dr John Woolf

Discover the unexpected and hidden stories of marginalized Victorians

The term ‘Victorians’ conjures images of top hats, tailcoats, voluminous dresses, and strait-laced ideas and customs.  But there were other Victorians who did not conform to this image.  In Vagabonds Oskar Jensen paints compelling, moving and unexpected portraits of London’s poor. In Black Victorians Keshia N. Abraham and John Woolf reach back to recentre our attention on these marginalized people.  Oskar and John will be in conversation with Andrew Holgate, Literary Editor of the Sunday Times.

“Jensen gives these past lives a monument, a dignity and recognition they deserve. For a brief moment, in the pages of this extraordinary book, they are London and London is them.“

The times – vagabonds

“Nuanced and complex, Woolf deftly shows there are stories of empowerment alongside those of exploitation.”

bbc history magazine – black victorians

Oskar Jensen

Oskar Jensen is an author and academic with a doctorate in History from Christ Church, Oxford. He has held positions at King’s College London and Queen Mary, University of London, where he was a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, and he is now Senior Research Associate in the department of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies at the University of East Anglia. Oskar writes for New Statesman, has appeared on BBC1’s Who Do You Think You Are? and BBC Radio 3 and 4, and was the historical advisor for the 2018 ITV/Amazon production of Vanity Fair. Vagabonds is his first trade non-fiction book.

Dr John Woolf

Dr John Woolf is a nineteenth-century specialist who read History at the University of Cambridge and the University of London, where he gained his PhD. He has researched and produced historical documentaries for the BBC. He was awarded the Tony Lothian Prize by the Biographers Club for his first book The Wonders.

Dr Keshia N. Abraham, founder and president of The Abraham Consulting Agency, is an African diaspora scholar and JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) educator committed to facilitating personal and organisational development through intercultural growth.

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