Little Englanders

A TIMES SUMMER READ FOR 2025

"For sheer entertainment, this rollicking account of Britain before the Great War is hard to beat, brimming as it is with swindlers, murderers and charlatans, imperialist fantasies and saucy innuendos" – 'History Books of the Year', The Times

"The very best sort of panoramic portrait" – David Kynaston

When Queen Victoria died in 1901, it marked the end of an era. Many later remembered the period that followed as the long afternoon of an empire where the sun never set. Yet, the Edwardians themselves knew the country was in a state of flux, experiencing seismic changes that would transform modern Britain forever.

Key Highlights of Little Englanders:

• Alwyn Turner reconsiders the Edwardian era as a time of profound social change.
• Brings history alive through:
  • Music halls
  • Male beauty contests
  • The 1908 Summer Olympics
  • The real Peaky Blinders
• A colourful, detailed, and hugely entertaining social history.

Turner vividly illustrates that, while the golden Victorian age was in the past, the birth of modern Britain was only just beginning.