E X T E N S I O N VICTORIAN AGE Robert Louis Stevenson lived in the Victorian Age, which started when Victoria became Queen of the United Kingdom in 1837 at the age of eighteen, and ended when she died in 1901. She was a strong determined woman. She believed in duty1, the family and good manners2. She was also very puritanical and formal. Her reign was very long and can be divided into three periods. The first one was difficult because the working class protested against their living conditions. Their protest was not successful3 but in the second period there were important social reforms. One of them was the Ten-Hour Act (1847): women and children could not work more than ten hours a day. Great Britain was the richest country in the world. The event that showed its progress was The Great Exhibition of 1851 at the Crystal Palace in London. Britain also had a great Empire with many colonies all over the world. The Victorians were very proud4 of it and they believed they were a superior race5 with a mission to civilise the pagan world. In the last period of Victoria s reign there were also two wars: the Crimean War (1853-56) between Russia on one side and Great Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia on the other; the Boer War (1899-1902) between Britain and the Dutch colonies of South Africa. Queen Victoria had a great influence on her time. As a consequence, there was a conventional morality: respectability and appearance6 were the most important aspects of Victorian society, which was very hypocritical7. 1. duty: something you must do because it is morally or legally right. 2. good manners: polite ways of behaving with other people. 3. not successful: had no good results. 4. proud: pleased and satisfied. 5. race: ethnic group. 6. appearance: the way you look on the outside. 7. hypocritical: not sincere. 25