We like new, novel things.

And sometimes the attraction of seeing things as fresh and surprising blinds us to repeating patterns in history.

There’s even a psychological term for it: recency bias.

A concept so old that we find the Roman historian Livy annoyed in the 1st Century BC that his readers would flick through - the tablets presumably - his work to read about the times they themselves knew.

But collectors know better.

Lillie Langtry might well have posted on Instagram had she had the option.

I can now chat instantaneously with someone in Australia.

You couldn’t do that in 1840.

But, you could enjoy exactly the same sort of inconsequential gossip I seem to like sending to them.

Nothing is new. Least of all celebrity. Though it may have had another name.

The Victorian age saw jumps in communication technology comparable to those in our own time that helped fuel some very familiar types of fame.

Here are 5 some historical influencers who made it massive without a single Instagram post.

The Superstar Author

Charles Dickens, wonderful story teller, and huge public figure.

Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870) is often cited as the first celebrity author, and that’s probably not true. But, his fame coincided with a huge growth in mass media and literacy and, crucially, transport.

The Victorian age opened with male literacy at around 60%, women were much less well off. By the end of her reign, pretty much everyone could read about her reign.

Dickens’ works rode this wave. Hie stories sold in huge numbers, very often in serialised magazine versions with lively illustrations.

It was a steamship that took Dickens on his pioneering tour to America in 1842 and railways that rushed him from sold-out lecture to sold-out lecture. His readings were theatrical tours de force - audiences wept, laughed, sighed...

Both in and out of fiction his opinions were loud and listened to. Critic Kate Flint says that after his US trip he became aware of his fame and assumed the role of “influential commentator”, a role plenty of other big-name authors aspire to.

Charles Dickens signed letter

The Demigod/Demagogue

Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Rivoli

Napoleon took a close interest in how he was portrayed and used it to his advantage.

To his men, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821( was something close to divine. And what a record he had as a general.

To the Ancien Regime houses of Europe he was the devil incarnate.

Even when he assumed a crown and the spectre of Revolutionary people’s armies towing guillotines behind them had vanished.

Take a look at some Napoleonic propaganda, and particularly anti-Bonaparte material, and you’ll see how personal and how nasty much of it is.

He was mad, he was impotent, he was an unhinged authoritarian and a crazed libertarian… and - despite being a perfectly respectable 5’ 6” - he was short.

Yes, one of the most enduring popular “truths” of Napoleonic memory is a propaganda lie.

And you’ll find some correspondingly hyperbolic praise to contrast with this, not least in Napoleon’s view of himself. Check out some of the portraits Napoleon had done.

If you’ll excuse the lazy approach, a Wikipedia definition of Bonapartism concludes: “political movements that advocate for an authoritarian centralised state, with a military strongman and charismatic leader with relatively traditionalist ideology.”

It’s not hard to find a modern equivalent, is it?

Napoleon's snuff box

The beauty

Langtry's image was a popular product for Victorian gentlemen.

Lillie Langtry (1853 - 1929) is a catchy contraction for Emilie Charlotte, Lady de Bathe which is how the Victorian super-celebrity ended her life.

Was she the first poster girl? Her Pear’s Soap ads are sometimes credited as the first “celebrity endorsement” but I wonder - in the spirit of this article - if we could find something earlier.

Nonetheless Lillie was a successful actor - a stage sensation! - then a producer, and also what was sometimes called “a professional beauty”.

Her looks landed slap bang on target of fashionable beauty standards of the day and her likeness, first in ink and paint, then in photographic form, was a commodity.

One of her portraits had to be roped off to keep admirers at a safe distance, artists reported they could make more money from a Langtry portrait than any other image, and she gathered crowds and inspired strong feelings wherever she went.

Her relationships were the stuff of much speculation. She may - or may not - have been the lover of some very rich and powerful men, including the Prince of Wales.

And in keeping with modern day celebrity, much of her story may be a self-created myth.

The self-help guru

The serious but benevolent smile of the man who created self help.

Samuel Smiles (1812 - 1904) was a serial failure when, in 1859, his masterwork Self Help was published.

The secret to success, Victorian style? Hard work!

Some of Smiles’ analysis of society, success and the self wouldn’t stand up today.

And much of it is probably less harmful than some of what you can find classified “self-help” in his shadow.

The 20,000 copies his book sold very quickly was an enormous number for the Victorian era. And, he had sold at least ten-times more before he died.

The book travelled around the world, and still has its fans. An Egyptian prince had phrases from Smiles written on his palace walls, a copy is kept in the museum that honours the man who founded Toyota. It was massive in America and Japan, and influential across the political spectrum, but particularly with liberals.

In true self-help guru style, Smiles pushed out plenty of sequels and was a popular public speaker.

The Royal

Queen Victoria in 1897, the year of her Diamond Jubilee, which confirmed her enormous, world-historic significance and popularity.

It almost seems too obvious to say, but Queen Victoria was a huge public figure in a way that was quite different from previous British royals.

Rather than tell the long, long story of her life and reign, here are a few reasons why she’s a modern royal.

She made the monarchy a national, popular obsession. The Georgian monarchs were often unpopular. The French Revolution wasn’t exported in all its forms but they produced substantial reform towards a more democratic state in which the monarch would become a figurehead rather than an active political figure. This continued through Victoria’s reign.

Photography came into its own in the Victorian era capturing the Queen and her family and sending her image around the country and history’s greatest empire. Pictures of the Royal Family were among the first commercial postcards. Mass literacy, postage stamps, then telegraphs... this age of mass communication demanded content like no age before it.

She was an active participant in public life, usually doing Good Works that were hard to critcise.

Britain became an Imperial power without precedence. There’s no need to pretend the UK (and certainly not the Empire) was a land or peaceful milk-and-honey for all, but the country was “successful” and the world’s pre-eminent power without challenge during her reign.

Nothing succeeds like being the visible figurehead of that.

It all culminated in the Diamond Jubilee in 1897, one of the greatest gatherings of heads of state ever seen, many of them owing allegiance of some sort to the little lady (unlike Napoleon she actually was short) who ruled the world.