Wonderful Adventures of Phra the Phoenician

A Phoenician merchant dies in ancient Britain during the Roman invasion, only to awaken centuries later in a world he barely recognizes. His body tells the story: his wife Blodwen, a British princess, spent her final years tattooing the entire history of his adopted homeland onto his skin before joining him in death. Now he drifts through the departure of the Romans, the Norman conquest, the Hundred Years' War, each era bringing new battles, new loves, and the constant presence of Blodwen's ghost, who appears as ethereal guide and tempting lover. It's a strange, melancholy fever dream of a novel, part historical adventure, part meditation on love that transcends death. Then, without warning, it careens into genuinely bonkers steam-powered robot territory for the finale. Arnold wrote this as a serial for Illustrated London News in the 1890s, and it feels utterly unlike anything else from its era: proto-steampunk, proto-fantasy, weirdly moving. For readers who think they know Victorian literature, this will ambush them.