19th Century British Literature

One hundred years of fiction from Austen to Hardy! Here's a thread to proclaim your passion or aversion for various British 19th century authors, to broadcast your current reading in the century (if you are indeed reading 19th century), to recommend little known or underappreciated authors, literary biographies and critical works and/or to ask questions...etc.

GOSH! There are so many.....I will have to make a list before I even attempt to post. And many of the ones I like might be relatively unknown, I am afraid...
Till later.

:-))

Yep, this is why I didn't post further! I can't think of a British 19th century author I dislike but I certainly have favorites. I think Charlotte Bronte is my sentimental favorite and George Eliot, my ultimate favorite. I picked up some Elizabeth Gaskell's that I haven't read and hope to get to them at some point in the future.

Not so long ago I read Dickens' Fur Coat and Charlotte's Unanswered Letters: The Rows and Romances of England's Great Victorian Novelists by Daniel Pool. It is deliciously gossipy and interesting to see how the book biz functioned back when.

I love all the Thomas Hardy novels, and more...

Oh dear, I have an aversion to Thomas Hardy, even more so as a poet than as a novelist.

Are there any other Wilkie Collins fans out there? His best known works are The Moonstone and The Woman in White, but he wrote a great many other very good novels.

#5 I agree re Wilkie Collins,No Name and Armadale are just as enjoyable as the two bog novels. Armadale was Collins own favourite work.

#3 Gaskell is very good, especially Wives and Daughters, which despite being left unfinished is a masterpiece. (The BBC did a brilliant adaptation of it a few years ago, well worth watching as well).

A couple of writers who don't get the credit they deserve are J. S. Le Fanu and George Macdonald, both of whom spread themselves too thin but when they were good they were very very good.
Le Fanu - Uncle Silas is as good a gothic novel as there is, while the Through A Glass Darkly is a fantastic collection of supernatural stories. (The vampire story Carmilla is superior to Dracula).
Macdonald - most famous for his childrens books, he wrote a lot of generic kailyard works, but bookended his career with two stunning fantasies - Phantastes and Lilith.

Elizabeth Gaskell's North & South is very good. Really brings to the fore the problems associated with the Industrial Revolution, the mill town in the book is supposed to be Manchester. I live in Manchester, NH it's namesake and we studied the mill girls here in the NH, MA area this semester. North and South really brings out the contrast of rural and industrial, and the move to industrial and what it does to the family. BBC did an excellent adaptation.

Collins' No Name is very interesting if you are reading it alongside Hardy's Tess of the D'Ubervilles or Gaskell's Ruth...all feature pregnant, unwed mothers (if I haven't mixed up the titles).

Have read only the one George MacDonald, Phantastes... Hmmm. I just put the Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction on order through ABEbooks.

Amanda, do you have the new Hardy biography by Claire Tomalin yet? I've got it but haven't read it.

>7 gjallen: I agree, the depiction of a northern English industrial town did make me think of the many mill towns here in New England (since I'm a stone's throw from Lowell, that's what I thought of) but I believe there is a bit more going on than just the contrast between rural and industrial in these British novels. Our rural in no way resembles their rural of landed gentry and tenant workers.

Yes, the adaptation is wonderful! (I compulsively buy most BBC and A&E adaptations of 18th and 19th century British literature).

Anyone fond of Middlemarch?

Yes, I love Middlemarch but my favourite George Eliot is Daniel Deronda. Until recently it seems to have been the neglected work, but there have been both television and radio adaptations that have brought it into greater prominence. I've been smitten since I was about eighteen.

Anthony Trollope is my favorite, especially the Palliser novels.

#7 & 8 - I think North and South as a novel but didn't enjoy the BBC adaptation, although it used to cheer me up coming home from work and being able to walk through Victorian Manchester - they filmed it in Edinburgh next to where I was living at the time.

Another female author who should be better known is Mrs Oliphant, it's a disgrace that most of her work is currently out of print. At least you can still get hold of Miss Majoribanks and her excellent ghost stories, A Beleagured City.

>11 Jargoneer: I believe I have a copy of Salem Chapel. I also have been picking up copies of Fanny Burney as I find them...isn't she the author that Jane Austen used to read as a young woman? Or was it Oliphant?

Just making the cut is HG Wells who along with Jules Verne (who pre-dated Wells) pioneered the genre of science fiction. Verne, the Frenchman, is more cosmopolitan where Wells is quintessentially English. The Edwardian parlour is never far away from his stories although Wells makes sure we are very aware of the issues of social class. It seems to me that Wells never let his enthusiam for telling a sci-fi story shoulder aside social commentary and it has meant that his works have retained a heft and significance.

#8 & 9
Yes, I love Middlemarch too. Love it love it love it. Lydgate's failure is so human, so true to life. It moves me every time I read it. The Gwendolen half of Deronda is excellent, but the jewish stuff is a bit too precious for my taste. A really good but neglected Elliot work is The Impressions of Theophrastus Such (review here: http://thelectern.blogspot.com/2006/08/impressions-of-theophrastus-such_14.html)
I'm also a huge fan of Dickens, who is so much maligned on this site (any other Dickens fans out there want to stand up for him? Dickens Group anyone?). Wilkie Collins is great too: The Woman in White stands comparison, IMHO, with the greatest of the 19th century novels. I can't get into Trollope (Vicarage gardens not really my thing), but a friend has assured me I would enjoy the Palliser series, so I"m looking forward to getting stuck into them. Another 19th century writer that I always enjoy is George Gissing, who wrote very gritty novels about the seamier side of London life: New Grub Street and The Odd Woman are particularly good.
There's nothing like a long 19th century novel!!!

#14 > tomcatMurr, I LOVE Charles Dickens!!!!!

Aluvalibri: at last, sweet love, I've found you!!!!
Hurrah!!!!!!!
Up with Dickens!!!!!

And count me in as well. Dickens is definitely my favourite 19th C. writer. No one undercuts the British establishment of that time better.

#16 and 17> we could start a Dickens thread.....

I wonder what is behind many readers' dislike of Dickens? Having been forced to read it in school? I have only run across one person who seemed to really have an aversion to Dickens and she said it was because her father was passionate about Dickens and they were often unwilling participants in his expression of said passion.

#18 I'd be in.

Count me in. Apart from Pickwick and Little Nell, I love Dickens.

Lois, I can hold my hand up to an aversion to Dickens. I recently had another go at Great Expectations which seems to be most people's favourite and again gave up afeter 150 pages or so. And yet I am able to plough through pages and pages of Dostoyevsky, so what is the problem? I suppose there is an element of having had to have read Dickens (and Hardy, even worse) at school but it is also the knowledge that the story will be so monotonously even-paced and meticulously chronological. Each new character throws up the face of some actor's portrayal from a TV series. I don't catch any struggle between the personal and social that seems such a driving force of classic Russian literature. Dicken's characters seem driven totally by their social and familial standing, wholly comfortable or wrought within it, not wrestling with an inner awareness of any personal existential angst.

I love Dickens. I think my favourite was David Copperfield.
dylanwolf: The TV factor might be important. I can't imagine reading Pride and Prejudice again after seeing the TV versions and the movie versions.

Oh, I have read all of Austen again (twice now) after having seen the various contemporary television productions of it (including the recent dreadful, 2 hr. "condensed" version of P&P). I ran two "Jane Austen Book Clubs" at the store and most everyone had seen some of the adaptations (which is why many of them came). I don't think one detracts from the other, necessarily. For me, I think I'm a seasoned reader enough so that when I read a book, the book takes over any picture in my head. It might not work for everyone.

I first came across Pride and Prejudice when I was fourteen in a stage version. Money to pay a cast must have been tight as there were only three daughters Jane, Elizabeth and Lydia. It affected my mindset drastically. When I eventually read the novel about eighteen months later I couldn't imagine what Jane Austen thought she was doing. Hadn't anyone told her there were only three girls in the Bennett household?

An excellent series of contemporary books I came across while preparing for various book groups is the Oxford Authors in Context series. There's a brief bio of the author featured, discussion of society at the time, cultural and literary contexts, a few essays, and, in the case of the George Eliot edition I have (and which is the closest to hand at the moment), an essay on "Eliot on Film and Television." Here is where I learned that Steve Martin's movie "Simple Twist of Fate" is a retelling of Silas Marner. Why didn't I figure that out? It also talks about how difficult it is to adapt Eliot's work to film because the drama is "such an intellectual affair" ......but I digress!

The series, which are inexpensive paperbacks, now features Dickens, the Brontes, Hardy, Collins, Eliot, Wilde and Woolf. I'm sure the series is meant for students but they provide an engaging overview of an author's work in relationship to their time and our time for any interested reader.

*she lapses, once again, into bookseller mode*

One 19th century book I find seriously underrated is Henry Esmond by Thackeray...its not a comedy and people have trouble accepting that from him...well worth the read, though (although Vanity Fair is still my favorite)

#26 Thanks for the info avaland. The only author from that time who I have formally studied is Dickens so I wouldn't mind re-reading and be able to put the works in a cultural/time/literary context.

Re #22 I generally like Dickens, but I have never liked Great Expectations so I hope you don't use it as the final test case. A Tale of Two Cities is a great swashbuckling sort of book and my own favorite is Bleak House.

I just brought home The Cambridge Companion to Elizabeth Gaskell, a new book this year. I can't resist this stuff. I love reading about literature as much as I love reading the literature itself. Now I have to set everything aside and go do some taxes:-(

Tomcatmurr has indeed gone off and started a "What the Dickens" group for those interested.

And it is a great group! So, please, join us in our discussions on Dickens.

I haven't seen the TV adaptation, but so far I've enjoyed the first 100 or so pages of North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. I'll admit I didn't really know much about Gaskell until I read about her works in Peter Boxall's 1001 Books. Always been a fan of Thomas Hardy and George Eliot and some of Charles Dickens, though.

no particular order, but Dickens, Eliot, and Bronte sisters are a few of my favorites.

Hey Digifish, the TV adaptation of North and South is absolutely wonderful. In fact it has overtaken Pride and Prejudice '95(I do like the '05 one too) as my favorite period piece. It is very well done and I believe that the characters are very well fleshed out. Infact I credit this miniseries for introducing me to Gaskell as I had never heard of her until I watched this adaptation. I then read the book, which I really liked it(I hope you continue to enjoy it as you read). I am yet to read Wives and daughters. I did like the miniseries but not as much as North and South. But that is not to take anything away from Wives and Daughters as it was well done, the scenery is just beautiful and the costumes are gorgeous. Wives and Daughters is in my to be read pile though it may take awhile to get to. Anyway happy reading and I hope you get to see both miniseries one of these days.

>35 TrishNYC: Hi Trish ~ I saw the miniseries of North and South right after reading the book last year and agree they were both lovely!

Wives and Daughters is in my TBR pile too! I will try to read it before seeing the series.

And then there is also Cranford! I read it last month, along with Mr Harrison's Confessions and My Lady Ludlow. The last of these three dragged a little IMO, but Cranford and Mr Harrison's Confessions are wonderful. And I haven't seen the TV series of these yet either. I will probably end up ordering it on DVD from eBay as it will take forever to appear on Australian TV.

Favourites:

Charles Dickens, although I've only read Bleak House, Oliver Twist and Hard Times, most of the rest are on Mount TBR.

Oscar Wilde - not sure if he counts, since he's Irish, but I liked The Picture of Dorian Grey and The Importance of Being Ernest. I've never seen the latter on stage, but the film version is rather fab.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - every crime writer must doff their deerstalker to Sherlock Holmes.

Victorian children's stories were also one of the things that instilled a love of reading in me - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Treasure Island and, from the early 20th century, The Wind in the Willows were early favourites read to me as bedtime stories.

I detest Jane Austen, which I know is not a popular stance. I don't envy Mr. Rossetti for having to try to teach Emma to a room of bored 16 year old boys, but he did a poor job and put me off for life.

Is that Trish over here flogging that adapation of North and South? *giggle* (she's hung up on the actor who plays Mr. Thornton, you know). I certainly agree with her, though, it was well done. I am a Gaskell fan also!

LOL Avaland!!! I just read your message. LOL again. Yes, it is true, I confess, I have a HUGE thing for the actor that plays Mr. Thornton. Avaland thanks for that laugh cause I was sitting here getting stressed out over the tasks that I need to accomplish today and I read your message and I am laughing so hard right now. I confess ladies and gents, I may be biased in my opinion of this miniseries. *giggling like a little girl as she walks away from the computer*

I too really enjoy British literature from the 19th century, but must admit that I often read Dutch translations. For example The picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and also a very strange and perverse book by Aubrey Beardsley that is called Under the Hill. I also love books like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Those I read in English, just as the works by Blake and Tennyson.

And for the ladies: yes, Mr. Thornton on screen is really candy for the eye! *giggle*

I'm allowed to BE English and still join an Anglophiles group? It's not that I think everything English is great (far from it) just that I love those 19thC authors. So a huge YES! to George Eliot (Middlemarch please!) Oscar Wilde (though definitely not English or even strictly British I see someone else has mentioned him), Jane, Hardy, Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Charlotte and Anne (though I can cheerfully live without Emily). And if you guys all get to ogle Mr Thornton, how about a great big 'puuuurrrrrrrr' for Rufus Sewell as Ladislaw in the BBC adaptation of Middlemarch? Yum!

I'm a big fan of Charles Dickens, who is niether unknown nor unappreciated.

I am also a fan of Dickens, although I like some of his stories better than others. David Copperfield has always been my favourite, but a close second is Oliver Twist. I can also highly recommend a modern sequel to that book, Jack Dawkins by Charlton Daines. He is a British author who does his research well.

The funny thing is, I'm somewhat ambivalent to Dickens' books on the whole (and detested them in high school). However, A Christmas Carol is, in my opinion, a perfect book. I do not say that lightly. The style and tone and message are pitch perfect every time I read it, which is every December.

I much prefer Wilkie Collins over Dickens, his women are so much more interesting. And why, o why won't the BBC give us Armadale just once instead of endless redoings of Austen and Dickens?

#45 Because - I suspect - the Beeb thinks he only wrote The Woman in White. We've had a number of adaptations over the years of that one while even the best-known of Collins's other books (Armadale and The Moonstone) are all-but ignored. I love Dickens too but would heartily agree that Collins has the edge when it comes to sheer entertainment value. And, let's face it, there are plenty to choose from! It wasn't until I had already become a devoted fan of those three best-known novels that I discovered what a very prolific writer Collins was. The BBC could cheerfully create a whole series of dramas based on his books and still have enough left over for new fans to discover independently.

Yes, I couldn't agree more!