At the age of twenty-six Matthew Fort first visited the Italian island of Sicily. He and his brother arrived in 1973 expecting sun, sea and good food, but they were totally unprepared for the lifelong effect of this most extraordinary of Mediterranean islands. Thirty years later, older and a bit wis[...]

This text is an attempt to re-imagine the Victorians: to suggest new ways of looking at received ideas about their culture; to distinguish myth from reality; to generate the possibility of a new relationship between them and people of the 21st century.[...]