Kill or Curare - a historical novel of crime and conspiracy, by Nigel Woodhead

May 1897. Wit and homosexual playwright Oscar Wilde, just released from two years in prison, arrives in Dieppe, Normandy, under the assumed name of Sebastian Melmoth. Notorious, disgraced, suicidal. Bent on vengeance against the society figures who have ruined him, including the mad Marquis of Queensbury... 
Hastings soon discovers there is far worse beneath the skin of the chic resort than mere political intrigue: against a “Naughty Nineties” backdrop of disease and drugs, of vice and violence, a serial killer appears to be responsible for the abductions and murders of several English prostitutes working in the town. The authorities are strangely keen to cover up these crimes. Crimes which echo those of the Whitechapel (Jack the Ripper) murders of 1888.

The novel features a host of historical characters - decadent writers and artists including Audbrey Beardsley, Arthur Symons and Leonard Smithers, as well as Edward the Prince of Wales. 

All of the key characters have secrets, critical personality faults – addictions, amnesia, perversions, money problems, madness -  making each of them credible, motivated suspects for blackmail and murder. Several casually use hard drugs, poisons even, for pleasure or as patent medicines. And the summer passes in an alcoholic haze...

Voyagers and Voyeurs, by Nigel Woodhead

Travel back in time to the gas-lit bars and cabarets of Bohemian Paris! A treasure-chest from the golden age of travel writing. Long before Peter Mayle grumbled his way through A Year in Provence, or Stephen Clarke traced his slippery path through A Year in the Merde, travellers from the English-speaking world were amazed by the curious customs, the strange sights, sounds and smells of France. Complaining about the waiters, the plumbing, admiring the cheeseboards and pretty girls. 
Annotated, humorous highlights from well over 100 first-hand travel accounts (travelogues, diaries, journals, collected letters, reports, guide books) written between 1750 and 1918. English and American authors, including some of the most famous literary figures of the 18th and 19th centuries: Dickens, RL Stevenson, James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain, Henry James, Thackeray, plus an eccentric host of itinerant parsons, amateur antiquarians, well-heeled aristocrats and ladies of independent spirit. A huge read. (Combined version of two-volume set.) 

Plus... People of the Abyss, By Jack London, 1903

A travelogue with a difference! In 1902 the American novelist Jack London went underground in England's capital, to provide an eye-witness narrative of the shocking squalor of the  notorious East End. He found that for the poor and criminal classes, little had changed since the grim days of Queen Victoria's reign. The first edition sold out with twenty four hours. 

Jack London's evocative narrative is offered in this ebook edition unabridged, enhanced with hyperlinks, period illustrations, maps & biographical notes, plus mock parhchment paper effect. 

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A naughty selection of Victorian erotic images - postcards, prints, drawings...