Britain under the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901) witnessed a great leap forward in technological terms, propelled by the Industrial Revolution. Social reform, however, took longer to gain momentum. In The Unseen, Amelia Drew skillfully intersperses extracts from Victorian household management manuals describing the duties of young servants with contemporary pamphlets calling for improvements in working conditions. The diary entries of Drew’s great-grandmother also appear, allowing us a glimpse into the gruelling and monotonous life of a housemaid. Drew does not shy away from providing meticulous descriptions of the foul tasks that servants were charged with and the kind of horrific injury that befell very young factory workers, and in doing so, dispels any lingering romantic notions of this era. This is a compelling book, but I suspect one that will be dipped into rather than read in its entirety.
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