Review: One of life's guilty pleasures
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 20, 2011
I came across Lee Jackson quite by accident. For those not in the know (a condition which would describe me a few days ago), Jackson is a historical novelist who also maintains VictorianLondon.org, a sourcebook for all things Victorian. He has been doing this for the past 10 years, so he knows the different levels of Victorian London inside and out.As this anthology makes clear, Jackson is no dilettante. He may not be the most popular author in the Kindle store, but he is certainly one of the most passionate, and he is clearly in love with the milieu that he chooses to write about. This particular book appears to be a selection from the material available on his website. As a consequence, it is a collection of passages, excerpts, and illustrations from the time. The material is organized alphabetically by topic, and a linked table of contents makes it easy to jump to the different topics of interest.Jackson has done a pretty good job in formatting and correcting what is essentially public domain material. The value of this anthology, however, comes in his expertise in selecting material that is both representative and interesting. He uses the Kindle format to good advantage in making these diverse topics available to the reader in a way that makes them more accessible than his website. The selections themselves are a lot of fun to read. Jackson has a knack for picking things like letters to the editor and travelogues that refract the Victorian period through the prism of everyday observers.I read enough of this anthology to feel comfortable buying Jackson's novels as well.  He has the potential to become one of my guilty pleasures and is a great find.