Fake News and the Victorians: Literature in the First Information Age

The 19th century became the age of the first information revolution. Driven by colonial and imperial geopolitics, rapid technological innovation, and the rise of mass print culture, news began to travel faster and farther than ever before. And so did questions of truth, authenticity and reliability. So, what can Victorian writers teach us about navigating misinformation today? How did they respond to this changing media landscape? And what role did literature play in the way we engage with different kinds of information? In this video, Professor Pablo Mukherjee FBA unpacks how their insights into misinformation, media trust, and the speed of communication can help us understand and navigate today’s digital information age. Speaker: Professor Pablo Mukherjee FBA This podcast is for informative and educational purposes. 10-Minute Talks are a series of pre-recorded talks from Fellows of the British Academy screened on YouTube and also available on all podcasting platforms. This podcast was produced by Find out more about the British Academy: For future events, visit our website:

You can listen to Fake News and the Victorians: Literature in the First Information Age online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Fake News and the Victorians: Literature in the First Information Age is an episode from 10-Minute Talks by The British Academy.

This episode is 7:39 long.

This episode was published on Dec 5, 2025.

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