The Disappearance Of Lydia Harvey

1910, Wellington, New Zealand. Lydia Harvey is sixteen, working long hours for low pay, when a glamorous couple invite her to Buenos Aires. She accepts - and disappears. London, England. Amid a global panic about sex trafficking, detectives are tracking a ring of international criminals when they find a young woman on the streets of Soho who might be the key to cracking the whole case. As more people are drawn into Lydia's life and the trial at the Old Bailey, the world is being reshaped into a new, global era. Choices are being made - about who gets to cross borders, whose stories matter and what justice looks like - that will shape the next century. In this immersive account, historian Julia Laite traces Lydia Harvey through the fragments she left behind to build an extraordinary story of aspiration, exploitation and survival - and one woman trying to build a life among the forces of history.

WINNER OF THE CWA ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION 'Brilliantly summons up one girl's life, dreams and suffering. It's ingenious history writing' Mail on Sunday 'A gripping, unputdownable masterpiece' - Hallie Rubenhold, author of The Five 'Extraordinary' - Guardian 'Historical writing does not get any better than this' Matt Houlbrook, author of The Prince of Tricksters 1910, Wellington, New Zealand. Lydia Harvey is sixteen, working long hours for low pay, when a glamorous couple invite her to Buenos Aires. She accepts - and disappears. 1910, London, England. Amid a global panic about sex trafficking, detectives are tracking a ring of international criminals when they find a young woman on the streets of Soho who might be the key to cracking the whole case. As more people are drawn into Lydia's life and the trial at the Old Bailey, the world is being reshaped into a new, global era. Choices are being made - about who gets to cross borders, whose stories matter and what justice looks like - that will shape the next century. In this immersive account, historian Julia Laite traces Lydia Harvey through the fragments she left behind to build an extraordinary story of aspiration, exploitation and survival - and one woman trying to build a life among the forces of history.

"In 1910, sixteen-year-old Lydia Harvey boarded a steamship bound for Buenos Aires amid a global panic about sex trafficking. Pimps, politicians and moral reformers expected her to 'vanish forever into the slims of the underworld.' Instead, she reappeared on the grey streets of Londons Soho, and made a choice that meant she wouldn't be forgotten. Historian Julia Laite traces not only Lydia's life, but the lives of those who shaped her story, who were brought together by one dramatic trial at London's Old Bailey, the flamboyant border-crossing criminals who entrapped her, the detective who tracked them down, the reporter who stoked the scandal and the social worker who made it her life's mission to help young women be heard."--Book jacket.

This illuminating global history challenges the notion that coercion alone dictated women's migrations for work in the sex industry.

Respectability, Bankruptcy and Bigamy in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Britain explores the vexed question of middle-class respectability in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. It focuses upon the life of London solicitor Hamilton Pawley (1860–1936), who was barred from working by the Law Society, twice declared bankrupt, and in 1919 was sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment with hard labour for bigamously marrying a woman practically forty years his junior. If Pawley did not suffer the revenge of respectable society, it is difficult to think who would. Drawing upon the fact that the disgraced and the disreputable have always tended to attract a disproportionate amount of attention, the book ranges widely, exploring such important issues as middle-class education, career choices, the dynamics of family life, and the workings of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century legal system. It shows that Pawley was able to hold on to his professional – and even gentlemanly – status for far longer than seemed likely. This all suggests, the book concludes, that although respectability was as important to the middle class as we have always been told, it was both easier to acquire and easier to retain than we have generally been led to believe. This book will appeal to all those interested in British society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In July 1939, at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, fifty-nine-year-old Beatrice Alexander was found incapable of managing her own property and affairs. Although Alexander and those living with her insisted that she was perfectly well, the official solicitor took control of her home and money, evicted her “friends,” and hired a live-in companion to watch over her. Alexander remained legally incapable for the next thirty years. In the mid-twentieth century, Alexander was one of about thirty thousand people in England and Wales who were, at any time, legally “incapable” and under the auspices of what is now the Court of Protection. Focusing on the period between the 1920s and the 1960s, Looking After Miss Alexander explains the workings of the court, using Alexander’s unusual case to consider the complexities of this aspect of mental health law. Drawing on Court of Protection archives – some of which were made publicly available for the first time in 2019 – and micro-historical methods, Janet Weston also highlights the role of chance, subjectivity, and uncertainty in shaping how events unfolded then, and the stories we tell about those events today. An engaging and accessible history of mental capacity law, Looking After Miss Alexander examines ideas of citizenship and welfare, gender and vulnerability, care and control, and the role of the state. It also offers reflections on historical research and writing itself.

Although historical research undertaken in different disciplines often requires speculation and imagination, it remains relatively rare for scholars to foreground these processes explicitly as a knowing method. Historical Research, Creative Writing, and the Past brings together researchers in a wide array of disciplines, including literary studies and history, ethnography, design, film, and sound studies, who employ imagination, creativity, or fiction in their own historical scholarship or who analyze the use of imagination, creativity, or fiction to make historical claims by others. This volume is organized into four topical sections related to representations of the past—textual and conceptual approaches; material and emotional approaches; speculative and experiential approaches; and embodied methodologies—and covers a variety of temporal periods and geographical contexts. Reflecting on the methodological, theoretical, and ethical underpinnings of writing history creatively or speculatively, the essays situate themselves within current debates over epistemology and interdisciplinarity. They yield new insights into historical research methods, including archival investigations and source criticisms, while offering readers tangible examples of how to do history differently.

The night of London's grandest ball, a bold group of women downstairs plot a daring revenge heist against Mayfair society in this dazzling historical novel about power, gender, and class Named a Best Book of Summer by The Washington Post * Good Housekeeping * Harper's Bazaar * Reader's Digest “Rollicking fun and entirely original... Anyone who relishes a good party gone wrong will devour this.” —Sarah Penner, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Apothecary Mrs. King is no ordinary housekeeper. Born into a world of con artists and thieves, she’s made herself respectable, running the grandest home in Mayfair. The place is packed with treasures, a glittering symbol of wealth and power, but dark secrets lurk in the shadows. When Mrs. King is suddenly dismissed from her position, she recruits an eclectic group of women to join her in revenge: A black market queen out to settle her scores. An actress desperate for a magnificent part. A seamstress dreaming of a better life. And Mrs. King’s predecessor, with her own desire for vengeance. Their plan? On the night of the house’s highly anticipated costume ball—set to be the most illustrious of the year—they will rob it of its every possession, right under the noses of the distinguished guests and their elusive heiress host. But there’s one thing Mrs. King wants even more than money: the truth. And she’ll run any risk to get it… After all, one should never underestimate the women downstairs. “A deliciously clever novel... You’ll never have so much fun cheering on grand larceny.” —Nina de Gramont, New York Times bestselling author of The Christie Affair, a Reese’s Book Club Pick