What if Time presented Charles Darwin with a different set of opportunities? What if he became a super-criminal? Florence Nightingale a rogue surgeon? Isambard Kingdom Brunel a living corpse in a massive mechanized steam-driven body? It is 1861, and Albertian Britain is in the grip of conflicting forces. Engineers transform the landscape with bigger, faster, noisier and dirtier technological wonders Eugenicists develop specialist animals to provide unpaid labour while The Rakes push the boundaries of human behaviour to the limits with magic, sexuality, drugs and anarchy. Returning from his failed expedition to find the