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Return of the Victorian age thriller

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Divia
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Post by Divia » Sat July 27th, 2013, 9:23 pm

[quote=""njslater""]As I researched my book I discovered there were quite enough remarkable things going on in Victorian times without resorting to steampunk. For instance it is strange but true that the fore-runners of the IRA built a submarine in the 1880s in order to attack British ships.[/quote]

I believe there were subs in the American Civil War as well.

It was an interesting age for sure.
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Michy
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Post by Michy » Wed July 31st, 2013, 10:04 pm

Yes, there were at least two subs in the Civil War -- The Monitor and the Merrimac.

njslater
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Post by njslater » Sat July 26th, 2014, 10:44 am

The Hunley was the most famous Civil war submarine and was amazingly, pedal powered. The writer Clive Cussler found it (others claim this too) and the US Navy recovered it and it is in a museum in Charleston.

The Irish had the Fenian Ram built and though it was never used it is in a museum too in Paterson New Jersey
N.J. Slater writer of Napoleonic and Victorian era thrillers

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fljustice
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Post by fljustice » Tue July 29th, 2014, 3:38 pm

The first manned submersible, called The Turtle, was built and used during the American Revolution. Interesting article--which includes correspondence between Jefferson and Washington about the vessel--here:

http://www.history.navy.mil/library/onl ... turtle.htm
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wendy
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Post by wendy » Wed July 30th, 2014, 2:38 am

Another notable book is Erik Larson's THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY about the Chicago World Fair and the "first" American serial killer. It's non-fiction, but reads like a novel. Excellent research and beautiful prose.
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Kat
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Post by Kat » Mon March 9th, 2015, 3:23 pm

The funny thing is that if you wrote about that, people would assume it was Steampunk fiction!

njslater
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Post by njslater » Sun June 14th, 2015, 9:59 am

I always include a page of historical facts at the end of my novels to separate the fact from the fiction
N.J. Slater writer of Napoleonic and Victorian era thrillers

Carl Sanders
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Re: Return of the Victorian age thriller

Post by Carl Sanders » Wed May 24th, 2017, 10:58 pm

Sure, the Vickies had science and all. Charles Babbage worked( mostly fruitlessly) on a prototypical 'computer'. He was aided in promoting the device by Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter by Augusta Milbanke( a mathematician.) How funny: she is often credited as the first computer programmer; I suppose Babbage himself had shown her how, so he would take precedence. :D
My wife likes to read aloud, so she read me King Solomon's Mines and She by H. Rider Haggard. Swell stuff, even now.

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