Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells is an anthology of gaslamp fantasy—stories set in or around the world of nineteenth-century Victorian England—edited by the ever-dynamic Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. The contributor’s list is full of familiar names: Delia Sherman, Elizabeth Bear, Theodora Goss, Ellen Kushner and Caroline Stevermer, Catherynne M. Valente, Jane Yolen, and so on. Many of these authors have previously written fantasies of manners or neo-Victorian stories; others visit the topic with fresh eyes.
The stories themselves touch a variety of genres and themes, from a contemporary academic fantasy to metafictional riffs on classic Victorian novels (and, of course, a light smattering of stories that might otherwise be considered “steampunk”). Several, also, offer critical portraits of the people within Britain who weren’t (and aren’t) often allowed their own words or stories: servants, wage laborers, and the people upon whose backs the glossy Victorian façade was built.
[A review.]