I am writing the first draft of a novel (historical fiction) set in the late Victorian era between England and France. As I live and work in Japan, however, my research scope is limited to Google and the Book Depository/Amazon.jp.
The British Library recently launched a fantastic "Romantics and Victorians" feature (http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians) on their website. While this archive has been quite fascinating in its own right and an immense help, I would like to ask fellow historical fiction writers where else I might conduct research. Any free online newspaper archives from the era would be highly appreciated, too.
Also, and though it isn't research as such, I often use the Online Etymology Dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php) in addition to the Oxford/Collins/Cambridge Dictionaries to check up on word usage/anachronisms. Are there other resources like this online that would prove useful?
Katie, thank you time and time again; this is all a really big help to me.
I have added the link to my favourites and I will keep my eye out for Cassell's Household Guide, too.
It's more to tell you about London streets. If you type in 'Hoxton Square' for example and look at the map you can see the area was blue and purple ie poor and mixed. But you can also see that 'poor' was considered 18s to 21s for a moderate family which helps you work out how much things must have cost.
This might help too:
http://www.victorianlondon.org/finance/money.htm
A governess in London would earn £20 to £40 according to Cassell's Household Guide (whch I think is now royalty free so you might find it on one of the shared sites)
Thank you, Katie. I am having a hard time using Booth's online archives though. For example, if enter the word "governess" in the "Search survey notebook pages" it will bring up "Booth B157" and give details "Notebook: Literature and Education [Published in 2nd series - Industry. Vol 4. Part I. Ch .6]". How do I view the actual entry? All I can do is click "List all index terms for this notebook" or "View all pages in this notebook" which takes me back to where I started, essentially. Am I completely missing the point of the Booth archives?