In the forest of family trees, voices from the past emerge to tell haunting tales. We must pause to listen. In The Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends, historian Simon Young argues that print folklore from the Victorian era deserves more than a passing mention as a “twig in the folklore family tree” in discussions of modern legends (xx). The Victorian urban legend offers a glimpse into the sentiments of the everyday, often-overlooked people of a specific time and place. The book includes a well-rounded introduction that provides historical context before delving into a handlist of seventy legend types, the majority of which were unidentified prior to the author’s extensive archival research. Using methods from the disciplines of folklore and history, Young has provided scholars a foundational work on which they can build further research to broaden the conversation about life in Victorian Britain.
To collaborate with the dead, one must utilize archives. Young began the task of collecting legends by searching the digital British Newspaper Archive (BNA) for terms he often found in Victorian newspaper accounts of belief legends, ranging from the common “strange story” to the more specific “something out of the Arabian nights” (xiii). The thousands of newspaper articles through which he searched revealed a number of legend types, which he saved to research further in other digital and physical libraries. Having used newspapers to narrow the search terms, Young branched out into other printed sources, such as chapbooks and broadsides. In the final published selection of legends, he only included stories of which he found at least three versions, or, if he could not find multiple versions, it had to include a comment that the story type was “common” (xiv).
Young situates the book in the academic disciplines of folklore and history by providing clear definitions of the terms he uses in the title. Young defines “Victorian” as a temporal and geographic marker, one that limits the scope of the book’s material to the time of Victoria’s reign (1837-1901) and the space of her territories of Great Britain, Ireland, and the wider Empire (xxiii). On the folklore side of things, the much-debated term “urban legend” is used to refer to belief narratives. Specifically, Young describes them as “explorations of belief,” where “the reader or listener wonders about the truth of the story” (xxi). By using a well-known term in the title, he also presents the book as a familiar topic to the public and academics outside folklore studies.
Literacy levels soared during Victoria’s reign, due to legislative change and the increasing availability of printed materials. Thus, folklore in the Victorian age expanded beyond oral genres into print. The stories included in the book were not just originally told orally, but were written in letters, chapbooks, broadsides, poetry, magazines, and more. Most importantly to Young, they were written in newspapers. Belief legends permeated print sources throughout the nineteenth century, primarily because they made good copy. Selling reading material for a cheaper price than in previous years meant editors, publishers, and agents needed to sell more copies to make a profit. Belief legends offered exciting reading for everyone, though they were often marketed toward “lowbrow” society in chapbooks and broadsides (xxxii). Despite the effort of newspaper editors and journalists to provide honest, “journalistic truth” (xxxii), urban legends made their way into the newspapers. This happened mostly through clipping and flaps, though Young includes individual reports and inventions in the book as well. Clipping was the Victorian equivalent to “copy and pasting” stories across printed sources, and flaps were reports of local stories circulating throughout the community (xxxvi). Thus, stories with anonymous origins and the possibility of truth spread throughout Victorian England (and beyond).
The seventy story types Young provides in the book are presented under simple monikers–some of which existed prior to his research–like “Sewer Monsters,” “The Suicide Club,” and, as to be expected, “The Nail in the Skull.” Each entry is prefaced with a brief summary, the year of the legend’s earliest attestation, its motif number (if applicable), secondary literature, and occasional author’s notes. The bulk of the entry is a mix of block quotes portraying various examples of the story from the Victorian era and historical context. In some cases, Young provides a contemporary version of the legend, such as in the entry for “The Nail in the Skull,” where the Victorian example of the tale is too long to provide in such a handlist.
The book is a rich resource for anybody wanting to take the first step into studying folk belief in Victorian Britain, but I think it is far from groundbreaking on its own. Young uses an informal tone throughout the book, making the book accessible to readers outside of academia. I welcomed this approach in the beginning, during the dense section providing historical context. The continued use of an informal tone throughout the descriptions of the legends, however, gave me the feeling I was reading someone’s personal notes and, thus, an unfinished project. The entries include several instances where the author interjects half-formed hypotheses and uncertain statements regarding the material, making it difficult for me to trust his credibility.
Overall, the book is a helpful resource for folklorists and historians beginning their venture into Victorian studies, as well as an engaging read for a general audience. The seventy legend types included in The Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends showcase the legends’ independent value as stories situated in the specific space and time of Victorian Britain, extending the conversation of legends in history beyond their usefulness as remnants found in modern narratives. Victorian tales of grisly ghosts might be gnarled branches of modern legend trees, but to limit them to this role is to ignore the life that can be found in the words of the dead.
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[Review length: 995 words • Review posted on September 16, 2023]