This is something we really don't think about enough: Victorian novels are full of children dying.
FULL of them. Full of diseases that we can now prevent with sanitation and pasteurization and vaccines!
And we wanna go back WHY? https://theconversation.com/infectious-diseases-killed-victorian-children-at-alarming-rates-their-novels-highlight-the-fragility-of-public-health-today-242273
@beebrookshire I have an English/History degree that focussed on Victorian Britain and the number of times I have said this... and people look at me like I have 2 heads because the idea that this was some glorious golden age is so strong that it has overshadowed the fact that the child mortality rate was atrocious.
@commonst @beebrookshire And let's not even start on how sheer bad luck can make you and your family into literal slaves in privately owned workhouses, or with kids as young as six pulling ore carts in mines...
