Alivia Fleur | Updates

Rabbit Holes & Realism: A Historical Fiction Writer’s Guide to Research That Inspires (Not Overwhelms)

Alivia Fleur — Fri, 3 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

‘I went down a rabbit hole!’

It’s a common cry in historical fiction author circles, especially among writers trying to balance historical fiction research with getting words on the page. Sometimes cried in dismay about lost hours in chasing down information, and at other times, it’s a cry of delight about an afternoon lost to the magic of research.

I personally don’t feel like research rabbit holes are a bad thing for historical fiction writers. There’s always a little piece of knowledge about the past that can be tucked away for another story or possibly woven into a work in unexpected ways. I was trudging down a rabbit hole about the First World War when I came across a reference to deserter stamps, a wonderful detail which worked its way into Undercover with the Heiress. A similar thing happened when I was researching Oxford social clubs in building out Duke Arley’s personal history for A Most Improper Duchess, and I came across a reference to the Bullingdon Dining Club. A scene immediately sprang to mind, and it forms an import part of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms. For me, a committed non-plotter (I hate the word pantser), rabbit holes are part of the creative process.

Sometimes it is important to rein in the research — especially when you’re learning how to research historical fiction without slipping into plancrastination or procrastinating through planning. There is always a danger that the research becomes a substitute for just getting on with the writing. When it seems impossible to become unstuck, it can help to know what role the history research will form in your story. Knowing the purpose of the research can help in knowing when you have what you need, when to stop, and when to keep reading, listening, or digging!

Here is how I think of historical research, how I use it, and how I make sure it is both a creative stimulus and a (mostly) controlled beast.

1. Create a strong sense of place from overview history

This is the type of research that often provides general information about a time and place. It’s not so much about chasing down a piece of information, but about getting a sense of time and place.

This is possibly my favourite type of research. For me, it involves reading a range of history books (not only the Victorian era) that encompass different perspectives. It isn’t just about reading. It can include listening to podcasts, watching documentaries, or even YouTube videos. Museum visits also count, as do art galleries! And listening to music! To me, this is history as love—working with others, admiring the work of non-fiction writers, and celebrating the study of the times before.

2. Craft vibrant settings

This is my weak spot—I go way into the deep end crafting settings and places for my stories. On Honeysuckle Street, I can tell you the year each building was built, the architectural style, any renovations undertaken over the years, and how well-maintained the gutters are.

I also often link features back to character traits. Number Four Honeysuckle Street, owned by trader and businessman Albert Abberton, is built of red brick. It’s honest, earthy, elegant but not overdone—just like Albert. Whereas Number Eight has a façade treatment known as ashlar. This is where a dressing is laid over cheaper, often mismatched bricks, giving the appearance of a more expensive finish but is a much cheaper alternative. It’s a nod to the Dalton family, which is plays pretence at being from the elite, but in reality, there is a considerable strain on the family coffers.

You may also like to sketch out or find a floor-plan. I have a street plan of Honeysuckle Street, which includes not only the houses but also the doorways, crossroads, the park and pathways to the chapel.

Other details about the setting that should be grounded in historical research can include the materials roads are made of and how drainage works (if it exists at all). This information can then feed into your writing. Are your characters walking on dirt, cobblestones, or pavers? Each feels different and sounds different. These are all wonderful details to weave into your descriptions and make places come to life.

3. Hone in on details to bring your time period to life

Is your female main character (FMC) wearing open or closed drawers? Underpants or going commando? Is her clothing held together with buttons, braces, zippers, or Velcro? Are buttons fabric-covered, shell, bone or plastic? These small details are where historical fiction comes to life. Trade catalogues, contemporary artwork, and museum collections are all rich in the information you need to help you find these details.

It’s the area where authors bemoan making errors the most. It’s so easy to miss a small something. And yes, it might feel over the top to write chaise lounge every time, but if you don’t, people will have opinions. Ask me how I know!

The important thing is not to let this type of research stop you from pushing on with the writing. If all else fails, just write ‘buttons’ and move on.

4. Work not to strict rules, but within the realm of possibility

So, you’ve done your reading. You have an idea. Your invention dates line up. But there’s one problem: you don’t have a specific reference that supports your claim that a person did/bought/received/carried out the thing you want to include in your story. What’s a writer to do?

Welcome to the overlap between past and present, fiction and non-fiction. This is where you ask: I am not 100% sure this thing happened in the time or place that I am writing about. But is it possible that it did?

To offer an example from my own writing, I asked myself this question in writing Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms. In that book, Florence, who grew up in Australia, was in an outback town with her father when she was thrown from a horse. She was badly injured. There was no doctor in town, but a local man was a bone setter. He set her as best he could, but on the slow ride back to the city, her joints began to heal out of alignment. Once in Sydney, her parents consulted surgeons, and a ship's surgeon who had served in the Crimea and read about surgical pinning in medical journals offered to help “pin” it, using techniques that would become the basis of orthopaedic surgery.

First question: Do I have a historical example of this happening to someone in Australia? No, I do not. I have read many, many books and primary sources about Australian history, and I have never read about a person experiencing exactly what Florence went through.

Next question: Is it possible?

There are many sub-questions in here that need to be answered. Let’s break them down:

a. Did architects in Australia travel from the city to small towns in the Victorian era? Yes, I have read many accounts and know of many buildings designed by architects who did not live in the place but were asked to travel from the capital cities (Melbourne or Sydney) to design a building. Tick.

b. Did small towns have medical services or hospitals at this time? No, many did not. If they were lucky, a local person might have been a midwife, a bone setter (an occupation popular in Scotland) or a chemist. Tick.

c. Is the ride in a sulkie long enough to allow bones to heal wrong? This is Australia, where ‘down the road’ could be ten minutes or three hours by car. This journey could easily have taken a week or two. Tick.

d. Did surgeons from the Crimean War make their way to Australia? Most definitely. The nature of shipping routes, army transports, government correspondence, and the business of empire meant that someone who had been anywhere wound up in Australia at some point. Tick.

e. Would that surgeon have experience in pinning fractures? Unlikely, but it is possible he would have read about the practice in a medical journal. The nature (and arrogance) of the profession at the time also meant that patients were completely at the whim of the medical profession. Tick and tick.

This is a great example of how historical accuracy in fiction often means working within the realm of possibility rather than documented fact.

It is also worth noting that originally I had thought that Florence might have had polio as a child. Why didn’t I use this as her background? While polio was diagnosed and a problem in the United States and England in the late nineteenth century, it was not an identifiable disease in Australia until 1911. It is not within the realm of possibility that Florence had polio, therefore, I worked on a different history for her.

5. Beware the Tiffany Problem

You wouldn’t name your Regency, or Victorian, or Tudor character Tiffany, right? Because Tiffany is a modern name. It would be ahistorical to call a character Tiffany. Maybe from the 1950s on, but not before.

What would you say if I told you that Tiffany is actually a medieval name? It comes from the Greek Theophania and was recorded from the twelfth century.

The Tiffany Problem is one of the most frustrating historical fiction research problems writers encounter. When we talk about the Tiffany Problem, we are talking about the challenge of incorporating things that are perceived as modern, but are actually very old, into our writing. Things like automatons, money, language, and names that sound contemporary but are historical. BUT if you include them, there is a very good chance you may get a review that says your research is wrong and your book is not historically accurate.

What to do?

There is no clear answer. I would say, check in with beta readers, ask your non-history-nerd friends for their opinion, check your references, and write good author notes. In my experience, most readers are kind, and if you explain your research in the author notes, they will understand. Many go off on their own research quests, which I think is the best thing ever! And the person who writes a bad review based on inaccurate history without checking their own references first was probably always going to write a bad review.

To which I say, screw ‘em.

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Hold the Dukes: 10 Historical Romances with Working Class Characters

Alivia Fleur — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ballrooms and banquets may dominate traditional historical romance, but today I am celebrating the stories rooted in the working and professional classes. While many historical romance novels focus on dukes, debutantes, and the glittering upper class, there’s a rich world of love unfolding among clerks, governesses, shopkeepers, labourers and artisans.

Historical Romance has firm foundations in the lives of the rich and titled—there’s a majestic escapism to a world that is not only outside of everyday life but also out of reach forever. However, there is an undeniable reality to those privileged stories, and that is that the labour that made life so magical for the rich was carried out by the working and professional classes.

Working class historical romances grapple with different questions in the game of love. Propriety and expectations are different, daily meals are not a given, and a small accident or a bad decision can have dire consequences. But beyond that is community, resilience, and connection. Love and work go hand in hand, and the promise of forever can be more touching because of that.

In these working‑class historical romances, love and labour are intertwined—and are more powerful for it.

How Frances Wainwright Learned to Love is a doctor/nurse romance set in a teaching hospital in the aftermath of the Crimean War.

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How To Find Free Books (without becoming a pirate)

Alivia Fleur — Sat, 7 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

As far as sources of entertainment go, books are really excellent value for money. For less than the cost of a movie ticket, even for a new release from an independent bookstore, you can expect hours and hours of entertainment. However, I do understand that sometimes there just isn’t enough money left over at the end of the day to justify purchasing another book.

Authors work hard on their stories and rarely see out the cost of their investment. ‘Earning out’, a term used to describe the amount of money in sales that covers the cost of producing the book, can take years, if it ever happens at all. Because of this, I find pirate book sites particularly galling, especially for authors who charge five or six dollars a book. Not only that, but there are also so many ways to read books for free, without stealing.

Here, I’ve put together a list of how you can find free books, legitimately, and support authors as you are reading.

Join a newsletter and get a book

Sometimes it’s a book, sometimes a short story or a novella, but many authors will throw out the lure of a free read if you join their mailing list. You will be able to unsubscribe at any time. Reading this way is an easy, low-risk way to try a new author, and if you enjoy their writing, you may even be happy to hear from them! You can sign up for my free novella, A Song and a Snowflake, which is only available to newsletter subscribers, HERE.

First in Series Free

Sometimes, once an author is a few books into a series, they will make the first book free. This encourages readers to try the author and see if they would like to keep reading. It’s a strategy often used by authors who sell their books wide, or in all stores (instead of being in Kindle Unlimited).

Free books are hard to find on Amazon because there isn’t a price filter, but you can do a genre search and use the ‘first in series’ filter. While not all these books will be free, many of them will be, and you will be able to search from there.

Other stores, like Kobo, have price-based filters that make searching for free books easier. Apple has a free books list for promoting free books.

Book One in the Tales from Honeysuckle Street series, A Beginner's Guide to Scandal, is free in all stores as a first in sereis free book.

Advanced Reader Copies, or ARCs

Prior to publication, many authors, both traditionally published and indie, will distribute a number of advanced reader copies. The agreement is that in exchange for a free book, the reader will leave an honest review. Some readers, if they love the book, will also post to social media to help the hype.

You won’t always get to pick what books you read. High-profile authors with anticipated books may have a selection process for readers with large social media followings or reach. But there are many, many authors who are just starting out, who have great books and would dearly love your support.

There are a few ways to sign up for ARCs. You can join an arc distribution service. The main ones are:

NetGalley

BookSirens

BookSprout

But there are other promotional companies that also distribute arcs. I have recently been using The Berry Agency. They send out all the books, check readers follow through on reading, and then send me an overview report at the end. Some authors like to read and check off every read, but I am not one of those! This approach is perfect for me.

Some authors will also have their own ARC team. These are often readers from the newsletter who sign up, or long-time readers and reviewers. If you like an author and would like to support them (and get free books), reaching out to them to ask if they have spots on their review team may be a way to join their ARC team. Most authors will be flattered, so don’t be shy.

But if you do join an ARC team or sign up for a book, please, please, try to follow through on reading and reviewing. And if you can’t, either reach out to the author or the distribution company handling arcs and let them know. It can be very demoralising for authors when readers don’t leave a review and we don’t know why.

Free Book Blasts

A free book blast is usually lasts for one day, but sometimes might be spread across two or three days. These are MASSIVE events where hundreds, if not thousands, of authors make a book free and readers are invited to download as many as they think they might like to read.

There are a couple of big ones of these, and many other smaller events. They are often heavily promoted on social media, so if you are following authors you like to read, you can probably track them down. The two big romance-themed promotions are:

RomanceBookWorms aka ZoeBub

Romance Book Blast

But just a few weeks ago, BookBub put together a little rundown of some other events in different genres.

You can find their post here https://www.bookbub.com/blog/stuff-your-kindle-day

Which brings me to my next great place to find free (or at least heavily discounted) reads…

BookBub!

BookBub is a newsletter service that advertises free and discounted reads. You can sign up for their newsletter, pick your preferred genres, and each day you can expect an email of free and discounted books that align with what you like to read delivered to your inbox. They have a newsletter just for free reads. AND, if you like an author, consider following them on BookBub to keep up to date on new releases and sales. It’s easy to sign up and follow. You can find them HERE.

And the last great place to find great reads is far, far from least… and that is the wonderful places we know and love called...

Libraries

I feel like libraries need no introduction, but sometimes people don’t realise just what they might be able to borrow from the library. Not just a place to find paperback and hardcover books, libraries will often loan out eBooks and audiobooks, have a large-print collection, and books in a range of languages. Many libraries also allow readers to request a book, so if there is something you’d like to read that your library doesn’t have on the shelf, it may pay to ask one of the librarians if they can put it on their shopping list for you.

After reading a free book, consider the following:

Leaving a nice review on your book review site of choice. Goodreads is the most well-known, but don’t forget BookBub, StoryGraph or PageBound. The place where you feel most comfortable is the right place for you to share a review.

Purchase the next book in the series or something else by the author.

Nabbing a paperback for the bookshelf or for sharing will make an indie author's day!

Subscribe (or stay subscribed) to the author's newsletter.

Did you enjoy this blog post? I'd love if you would share it with a friend who also enjoys free reads.

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Tiny Tales, Big Impact: The Art of Writing Better Short Stories

Alivia Fleur — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I am an accidental historical romance author.

Which sounds a little odd. How can you accidentally start writing in a genre?

In 2022, I had been writing fiction for a few years. Mostly historical fiction, and a mix of time-travel and literature. I had written a few short stories, along with trying to write a novel, but I kept coming up against a wall when trying to write steamy scenes. Not so much writing the scenes themselves, but in getting constructive feedback. Part of it was the people doing the reading didn’t quite know how to respond, and part of it was my own embarrassment in wondering what people would think about me writing, you know, scenes like that, and not sharing them.

But I really wanted to learn, and to get better at writing spicy scenes, not to necessarily include them, but because I hate being scared of things. I wanted the option to decide what I would write, and to not default to fade to black because I was scared.

So, in 2022, I wrote a little short story and self-published it, complete with a homemade cover. I read the reviews, gathered up some feedback, read some books and then I wrote another story, and another. One of those stories has won a Romance Writers of Australia RUBY for best novella, at a little under 11,000 words.

Over time I’ve learnt and refined my process, and these are some of the things I have learnt that help keep me on track.

One main plot or turning point

Don’t follow a heap of beats. Don’t squeeze in two no ways. There is one plot point, and that plot point is the obstacle that is stopping the couple from getting it on. Another way I’ve seen this written is that a character has a problem, and that problem can only be solved with sex, but I think this depends on what you are writing. My short stories are not just about getting to The Good Bit but also tackle an emotional barrier. This barrier has stopped the character from forming connections. Processing it allows for emotional (and sexual) intimacy with another.

Focus on every paragraph, every sentence, every word. Is it working hard enough? Is it carrying its weight? If not, it has to go.

No dumping

Don’t feel tempted to put in a scene where one-character talks through all their emotional baggage, aka exposition, with a friend so that you get it all out. You need to make that background work harder, my friend. No dumps.

Feed relevant back story as it's needed. Don’t try to set up the story with all the background in the first or second paragraph. Just say it short and sharp, through action. Feed out exposition that helps as the story progresses. Tell what you need to tell at the moment it is relevant.

I also try to make sure that all the backstory is out by the time we get to the turning point/plot point. After that, everything is an extension or deepening of what has already been set up, but not new information.

Slice of life

I always think of a short story as a slice of life, a snippet about the people involved, whereas a novel is the Biggest, the Bestest, the most exciting (or terrifying or life changing) thing that happened. It doesn’t need an epilogue or a wedding or loads of other things. It should still be a significant moment, but it doesn’t have to be everything. If you are having trouble pulling your short stories into line, this approach may help. Which slice—and only one slice—are you going to write about?

Short stories don’t have to be light on or lacking in conflict just because they are short stories. A good short story can have as much depth as a novel. The biggest difference between a short story and a novel is not depth or meaning, but focus. There is less other stuff going on. A novel has periphery, or other sub-plots that are pulled in and out of focus. A short story is more focused on one thing.

Short doesn’t have to mean light

A short story should also be about something else, some common universal theme (or, to quote T Taylor in 7 Figure Fiction, some kind of butter). At its heart, Hide and Seek is about how we carry the wounds of betrayal into new relationships, and sometimes, the person who provides the healing isn’t the person who inflicted the wound. I write a lot about the complexity of grief, and how it doesn’t go away until it is dealt with, because time heals nothing. All of this sits beneath the bigger story.

But having written this, I realise that there’s a very good chance you won’t know the story’s theme until after you’ve written it. There’s a very good chance you’ll look back and go Oh, I think that’s what I was trying to say. But if your stories seem lacking, try to find this theme, and add in a few lines to help it shine.

In late, out early

This is my favourite piece of advice, and one of the hardest for me to learn. It took many rewrites and restarts to learn what it meant. The opening paragraph needs to work super hard in a short story, to establish:

Point of View
Location
Emotion
Character

That’s a LOT!

One way to hit all of these is to show the character in action. I like to start after the inciting incident, or after the thing that sets the entire story in motion has happened.

Tryst with a Viscount doesn’t start with Lilian being told she’s going to marry, but with her refusing to dance with her friend because she is too worried about her future to enjoy herself.
The Portrait Sitting starts not with Clarke receiving Francine’s letter, but as he is waiting for her to arrive.
Hide and Seek doesn’t feature the wedding ceremony, even though it’s a newlywed story. The story starts just after the ceremony.
My Fake Mistress starts moments after Blythe has lied and said she is Julian’s mistress, not with the lie itself.

These stories all could have started earlier but starting that bit later allows me to show all those important things about the character, setting, everything, without slowing down the pace. If your short stories feel like that take a while to get going, think about if you are starting with the inciting incident, and of you are, can you move the beginning to later in the story, and show us the characters already in action and dealing with the consequences?

Out early is the same thing, only reversed. We don’t need the epilogue; we just need the action that starts the wrap-up of the story. For me, in a romance, this is with the promise of forever. I also like to end with the suggestion that the couple are about the get it on again very shortly, but this isn’t necessary. It’s just what I like to do to create that feeling of a growing relationship, and to allow the reader to imagine their own epilogue for the characters.

Write, write, write/Cut, cut, cut!

Overall, the best way to get better at writing short stories is to write them. Start them and see where it goes. Wrestle with the plot, set a word count and make yourself pull the story into line. Don’t use that lazy adage—the muse ran away on me! Show discipline. Free writes and explorations of ideas can go rogue, but if you are writing a short story, set the word count and make it behave. Cut the subplot. Lose that character. Make every word work. That’s how you learn.

What are you waiting for? Get writing!

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A Toast to Jane Austen on her 250th Birthday

Alivia Fleur — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I gave this speech at a screening of the Pride and Prejudice movie, at an event hosted by the wonderful Riverina Readers Festival. This is a community group that I have been involved with for a few years now, and I absolutley love being part of this community of readers.

After the welcome and hello, we begin...

Jane Austen was born on this day in 1775, the seventh of eight children born to her parents George Austen, an Anglican rector, and her mother Cassandra. Jane began writing in her early teens and wrote consistently over the course of her life.

She had what we might now call a modest or unremarkable career. During her own lifetime her books were published anonymously, as was standard for women authors, lest full-time work as a writer be promoted as preferable to being a wife and mother. After Sense and Sensibility was published and well received, her books were credited to “the author of Sense and Sensibility,” although in some smaller circles her identity was openly known. Fans included the Prince Regent, whom she met, and he kept a copy of all her books in the royal library.

Her life was one of financial precariousness. After her father died suddenly, Jane, her sister and mother were reliant on male relatives for financial support. Insecure publishing contracts and royalty deals made some money, but never enough to make her financially independent of others. After a long illness, which may have been lymphoma, Jane died on 18 July, 1817, aged 41. Later that year, Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published as a set, and in that publication her brother George wrote a eulogy that identified her, by name, as the author. In the years after her death, her books sold steadily, but not in huge numbers. However, perhaps more significantly, they remained a fixture in libraries and private collections, were passed from one reader to another with quiet recommendations, and a following of beloved readers and admirers slowly took form. In 1832, publisher Richard Bentley purchased the copyright to her books and published them as illustrated editions. Since 1833, they have never been out of print.

We often refer to Jane as the founder of romance as a genre, and with good reason. In her books, she gave us banter. She gave us the meet cute. She gave us longing looks, and pining, the grand gesture and the very best in heart felt confessions of love. And there are two things that Jane gave us that I believe are the most important, and why we love her so very much.

The first is that in her books, we not only watch two people fall in love, but we also watch them settle into a power dynamic where they face their future as equals. After the wedding ceremony, He will practically own Her, but we know that she will be okay. She will not be bullied. She will be loved. Not only Elizabeth, but also Jane and Lydia, Anne, Emma and Charlotte, all of Jane’s women, no matter how badly they have behaved or how silly they have been, they are forgivable, redeemable and have a future of financial stability. There is
no Anna Karena or Madam Bovary style tragedy for them. Jane’s women are allowed to falter and still be okay. And this leads to the second thing that I believe Jane gave us, and that is, the book as a safe place.

One of the criticisms of Jane has always been that her stories are fail to address the historic realities of life for women. And even all these years later, “unrealistic expectations” is a common criticism levelled at those of us who hang out a lot in Romancelandia. At the time Jane was writing, marriage was a contractual arrangement that transferred property from one man to another.

Fifty per cent of pregnancies ended in the death of the mother, baby or both.

Jane wrote her stories more than a century before the introduction of the Married Women’s property act of 1882, which allowed women to maintain private ownership of the things they brought into a marriage, and more significantly, allowed them to keep any wages they earnt while they were married. Jane and her contemporary readers did not need a fiction book to tell them that the world could be an unfair, unsafe place. They needed a place to rest, to dream, to imagine, without wondering if the character a bit like them
was going to be killed off to advance the plot or make a point.

At the time, Jane’s books offered a gentle space, and now, we see this played out as not a failing, but as the defining feature of romance. Because regardless of the sub-genre, regardless of the pairing (or throuple or why-choose), regardless of the planet or dimension or world of the story, no matter how light or how dark, what romance books offer is the promise of happiness embodied within the journey, no matter who you are. Jane wrote the book not as a moral lesson or instruction, but as a safe place to be. And this certainty of the Happily Ever After is, to me, the best thing she gave us.

With that, I ask you to raise a glass.

To Jane.

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A Peek Inside the Honeysuckle Street Townhouses

Alivia Fleur — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Last summer, their aunt had purchased one in an identical stretch of five white stucco-clad townhouses in a quiet part of London. A dedicated bluestocking and proud spinster, the townhouse represented the independence their aunt valued. She had written gushing letters detailing how elegant and modern her new home was—fitted with cast-iron pipes, a kitchen with a hot water boiler that also serviced the bathrooms, and gas lamps in every room.

-A Song and a Snowflake

Right from when I first had the idea to write a series set on a street, I knew I would have a row of townhouses.

Townhouses had existed before the Victorian era--the whole idea of a townhouse is that it is a wealthy family's town house, as distinct from their country residence. Those who only lived in town presumably just had a house.

The design that the houses on Honeysuckle Street are based on comes from Robert Kerr's The Gentleman's House, or How to Plan English Residences (1864). In the early days of the professionalisation of architecture, Kerr was one of the founders of the Architectural Association, and later an elected fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.The design is quintessentially of its time. It has a sharp delineation between servant and family spaces, including walkways and stairwells:

The bottom floor, containing the kitchens, coal storage, scullery and bedrooms for some of the staff, is underground. The butlers pantry would often be where alcohol or expensive food would be stored behind a locked door. As head of the household, the butler was charged with stopping expensive food items from being stolen. Later, with a better understanding of health and hygiene of the 1870s, kitchens would be moved to the rear of the house and above ground.

The ground floor served as an intermediate space for everyone. Family and servants would cross paths in hallways and the dining room, and this floor was also where guests were greeted if they were coming for dinner. This level also led into a small courtyard and to the back of the house where the staff employed to car for the horses and the carriage lived.

The first floor contained a mix of public and private spaces, depending on how the family chose to allocate them. It could be a parlour, drawing room or sitting room. In Undercover with the Heiress, Rosanna's bedroom is on this floor, at the back of the house.

By the second floor, there are no more flexible spaces--these rooms are for the family, and maybe, a visitor. If you are curious, this is the level where Phineas has his bedroom in Heiress, in the rooms marked as guest rooms. If husbands and wives kept separate bedrooms, one of them might be on this floor.

The third floor has lots of smaller rooms. This is the space for older children, with some linen storage and additional bathrooms.

And finally, the fourth floor is the space for young children. It is no coincidence they are at the top of the house, after all, this is the era where children are seen and not heard. Ladies maids, maids and the nanny would be here too, ensuring a good distance between the male and female staff.

References

Robert Kerr, The Gentleman's House, or How to Plan English Residences (1864).

Trevor Yorke, The Victorian House Explained (2005).

John Summerson, The Architectural Association 1847-1947 (1947

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