Black Victorians: Hidden in History, by Keshia N Abraham and John Woolf, is an enlightening and accessible work that recovers from history important Blacks from the Victorian period.

The opening section nicely contextualizes just how many Blacks, as well as members of other marginalized groups, were erased or ignored as the histories were written. In the blink of an eye a person could go from having a work dedicated to them to being removed from the dedication and future association with the person. While race may not have been the only factor in a few of these, it no doubt played a large role in how effectively these people were forgotten.

No matter how many of these names are new to you, each profile is interesting and will likely contain information you didn't know. Having these together in one volume helps to illustrate the degree to which, even in places that were relatively progressive for the time, there was a distinct difference in how Blacks were remembered.

While not academic in the writing, there are a lot of very useful notes (especially for those wanting to learn more) and an extensive bibliography. The body of the book is wonderful, but I think the value lies in how many readers and researchers will use this as a springboard into future research and recovery efforts. And the bibliography included here will be a great resource for them.

Highly recommended for both the casual reader who wants a better grasp of the history that gets overlooked in school as well as the person who might want to do more research, whether formally or not.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )