Mary L. Shannon

I research and write about Regency and Victorian popular culture, fiction, plays, images, and the press.

I’m fascinated by the cultural world of nineteenth-century London and its teeming history: the places, the people, and the streets.

My latest book is the biography of famous 1820s African-American London busker Billy Waters, Billy Waters is Dancing: How One Black Sailor Found Fame In Regency and Victorian Britain published by Yale.

I speak on the Radio and TV about nineteenth-century culture and I do research consultancy work.