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Home / Periods / Victorian Era / Late Victorian Empire

Phase

Late Victorian Empire

1870–1901 CE

The late Victorian decades saw the British Empire reach a height of territorial and cultural confidence. Imperial wars, missionary activity, global trade, migration and racial ideology shaped how Britain imagined its place in the world. At the same time, Irish nationalism, colonial resistance and rival empires exposed the limits of that confidence.

This phase matters because the glamour of empire was inseparable from coercion, extraction and violence. It also created global settings for fiction: India, Africa, the Pacific, Canada, Australia, the Caribbean and imperial London. Late Victorian stories can follow soldiers, civil servants, missionaries, rebels, merchants and families caught between imperial ambition and moral doubt.

Related people for Late Victorian Empire

Ahmed ‘Urabi1841–1911 Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington1769–1852 Benjamin Disraeli1804–1881 Charles George Gordon1833–1885 Dabulamanzi kaMpande1839–1886 Dingane kaSenzangakhona1795–1840 Dost Mohammad Khan1793–1863 Evelyn Wood1838–1919 Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts1832–1914 Garnet Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley1833–1913 George III1738–1820 George Pomeroy Colley1835–1881 Gonville Bromhead1845–1891 Haile Selassie1892–1975 Henry Pulleine1838–1879 Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston1784–1865 Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener1850–1916 John Chard1847–1897 Jomo Kenyatta1893–1978 Joseph Chamberlain1836–1914 Mahatma Gandhi1869–1948 Menelik II1844–1913 Muhammad Ahmad1844–1885 Napoleon III1808–1873 Napoléon, Prince Imperial1856–1879 Otto von Bismarck1815–1898 Paul Kruger1825–1904 Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari1841–1879 Shaka1787–1828 Victoria1819–1901 Walter Hamilton1856–1879 Winston Churchill1874–1965

Series

Series about Late Victorian Empire (2 series)

When the Lion Feeds Sequence in Order

by Wilbur Smith 3 books 4.5(31,997)

The When the Lion Feeds Sequence follows Sean Courtney and his family through the transformation of southern Africa from the Anglo-Zulu War and the Witwatersrand gold rush to the Second Boer War and the aftermath of the First World War.

Ballantyne–Courtney Crossover in Order

by Wilbur Smith 3 books 4.5(17,197)

This crossover sequence brings the Ballantyne and Courtney families together during the late nineteenth-century contest for power in Africa. Its action moves from the Mahdist siege of Khartoum to Ethiopia’s resistance to Italian invasion and the opening of the Second Boer War.

Books

30 Best Novels About the Late Victorian Empire

Non-Fiction

16 Best Non-Fiction Books About the Late Victorian Empire

Histories, biographies and reference works are listed separately from the historical novels above.