LibGuides: Victorian British Literature: Read the Lit

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Bleak House by Charles Dickens A enthralling story about the inequalities of the 19th-century English legal system Bleak House is one of Charles Dicken's most multifaceted novels. Bleak House deals with a multiplicity of characters, plots and subplots that all weave in and around the true story of the famous case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, a case of litigation in England's Court of Chancery, which starts as a problem of legacy and wills, but soon raises the question of murder.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Pip is content with his simple life until a bitter gentlewoman employs him as a sometime companion to herself and her adopted daughter. Pip then aspires to become a gentleman himself, though his dreams are unrealistic until the day he mysteriously comes into a fortune and is sent to London to become refined. The story follows Pip's journey into adulthood and emotional maturity and understanding.
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest is the last play Oscar Wilde ever wrote, and remains his most enduringly popular. It makes fun of social graces in the late Victorian era. Two seemingly unrelated parties are thrown into ridiculous entanglement when their fake identities, maintained in order to escape social responsibilities, grow ever more complicated to uphold.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre is raised in her aunt's house after the death of her parents. Her aunt cannot stand the queer, quiet child and sends her off to a spartan boarding school where she is severely mistreated. She survives, however, and eventually finds herself a situation as a governess in the household of Edward Rochester. She and Rochester fall passionately in love, in one of the great literary love stories. But a dark secret in his house will tear them apart and send her alone into the wilderness before she can find her way back to him.
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson Originally written as a boys' adventure novel, Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped has received praise from a range of writers, including Henry James and Jorge Luis Borges. Set around events in eighteenth century Scotland, such as the "Appin Murder" that happened in the wake of the Jacobite Rising, it skillfully and sympathetically portrays the political situation of the time.
Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere's Fan: A Play About a Good Woman is a play by Oscar Wilde, who uses his sharp wit to satirize Victorian ideals about marriage. Lady Windemere suspects her husband of infidelity and retaliates by taking a lover. Her husband's suspected lover follows her, begging her to return to Lord Windemere. The lover sacrifices her own reputation for that of Lady Windemere, in order to save that lady's marriage.
The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning by Robert Browning; Elizabeth Barrett Browning When Robert Browning first met the ailing Elizabeth Barrett in 1845 it must have seemed to him like something from a gothic novel. All but a prisoner to her strict, disciplinarian father, (who had forbidden all twelve of his children from marrying and disinherited any who disobeyed him), Elizabeth had recently published a book of poems that had made her one of the most lauded writers in the land. Robert, enamored by Elizabeth's poems sought out a correspondence and after hundreds of letters had been exchanged between the two poets, Elizabeth finally agreed to meet him, beginning one of the most celebrated courtships in history. The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning chronicles the development of this remarkable relationship in the poets' own words and is a beautiful tribute to romantic love and literary sensibilities.
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens Oliver Twist is born an orphan and grows up handed from bad position to worse. Eventually he ends up in the London street gang run by Fagin, who attempts to blacken the boy's pure soul in his service. Through chance and coincidence Oliver is restored to his mother's middle-class family, where he is shown love and comfort for the first time in his life. The villains' attempts to kidnap him back are foiled and all are transported or hanged. Full of sharp irony and wit, Oliver Twist was Dickens' first social novel. He did not indulge in the romanticism of villains, popular at the time, but attempted to display areas and practices in London which were all but visible to his readership.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde In this tale, Dorian Gray makes a fateful wish and exchanges his soul for eternal youth, but his hidden portrait bears the marks of his debauched and cruel behaviour. Oscar Wilde displays his handling of issues such as art and morality, censorship and interpretation, deception and revelation.
Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning Sonnets from the Portuguese is the collection of love poems written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning in the time leading up to her marriage to Robert Browning. Elizabeth hesitated in publishing the poems, as they were so personally revealing, but her husband persuaded her of their high worth. She decided to pass them off as translations, in order to obscure her authorship, and so the title of the collection came about. They were, and remain, immensely popular.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is Robert Louis Stevenson's thriller allegory of a medical experiment gone wrong and dual personalities, one the essence of good, the other the essence of evil, fighting for supremacy in one man. Filled with suspense the book has had such an impact in popular culture that the expression "Jekyll and Hyde" has itself become synonymous with extremes of or inconsistent behavior.
Sweeney Todd : The Demon Barber of Fleet Street A sensational story of murder and pie-making, Sweeney Todd is a classic of British horror writing, widely adapted in print and on stage, most famously by Stephen Sondheim, whose unlikely "musical thriller" won eight Tony awards. This edition offers the original story with all its atmospheric Victorian trimmings. The story of Todd's murderous partnership with pie-maker Margery Lovett--at once inconceivably unpalatable and undeniably compelling--has subsequently set the table for a seemingly endless series of successful dramatic adaptations, popular songs and ballads, novellas, radio plays, graphic novels, ballets, films, and musicals. Both gleeful and ghoulish, the original tale of Sweeney Todd, first published under the title The String of Pearls, combines the story of Todd's grisly method of robbing and dispatching his victims--by way of Mrs. Lovett's meat pies--with a romantic sub-plot involving deception, disguise, and detective work, set against the backdrop of London's dark and unsavory streets. Editor Robert Mack 'fleshes' out the story with a fascinating introduction touching on the origins of the tale, the growth of the legend, and a history of its many retellings. Mack also includes explanatory notes that point out interesting aspects, plus a full chronology of the many versions of Sweeney Todd. Since Sweeney Todd first entered the public imagination in the mid-nineteenth-century, his exploits have chilled and fascinated audiences around the world. This new edition allows modern readers to savor the ghastly original in all its gruesome glory.
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities is shorter and more compact than many of Dickens' novels and also more serious. Set in England and France during the French Revolution, it deals with ideas of grace and resurrection and explores the mob mentality of the Revolution. It is also a love story.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë The novel of love, betrayal, and a woman's longing for independence universally acclaimed as Anne Brontë's greatest work. When the widow Helen Graham arrives at Wildfell Hall with her young son, Gilbert Markham is intrigued by her beauty and mystery. But as scandalous rumors begin to circulate, Gilbert fears his affection may be misplaced. So that he can know the truth about her, Helen gives Gilbert her diary. From it, he learns that Helen Graham is no widow at all, but a woman named Helen Huntington, who has fled from her cruel and debauched husband in order to protect her son.   First published in 1848 under the pseudonym Acton Bell, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was both a popular phenomenon and a bold challenge to Victorian morals. Its sympathetic portrayal of a woman who chooses to leave her husband--an act that violated English law--made it one of the first feminist novels in the English language.   This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.  
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson was a great traveler, who spent his last years in the Pacific, far from his native Scotland. His novel Treasure Island is a seafaring adventure story filled with treasure, treachery, pirates, ships and islands. It was originally published as a serial in the children's magazine Young Folks. Stevenson's novel greatly influenced popular pirate imagery: the treasure map marked with "X", the tropical island, the schooner and finally the one-legged pirate complete with parrot.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë The immortal story of love and obsession in the North of England Atop the stormy Yorkshire moors sits Wuthering Heights, a manor inhabited by Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw and their two children, Catherine and Hindley. The fate of the manor, and the family that lives in it, is forever changed when the Earnshaws adopt a dark-skinned orphan boy named Heathcliff. As the years pass, Heathcliff and Catherine fall deeply in love, but even their great passion cannot survive the pressures of society and the black force of jealousy. Driven away by a broken heart, Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights only to return years later, bent on the cruelest kind of revenge. Published just one year before Emily Brontë’s untimely death, her only novel shocked Victorian reviewers with its vivid depictions of passion and brutality. It is now considered a masterpiece of English literature and one of the most enduring romances of all time. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

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Adam Bede by George Eliot A remarkably vivid depiction of village life provides the backdrop to George Eliot's first novel, a story of nbsp;love and betrayal invested with social realism of unprecedented sensitivity.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Adam Bede is an upstanding young carpenter whose greatest weakness is his infatuation with the self-absorbed village beauty, Hetty Sorrel. Hetty has secretly set her sights on Captain Arthur Donnithorne, heir to the local squire's estate; his abandonment of her and her engagement to Adam set in motion a tragedy that will touch many people's lives. When Hetty lands in prison, accused of murder and facing a sentence of execution by hanging, it is her fervent young cousin Dinah Morris, a Methodist preacher, whose intervention offers both Hetty and Adam comfort and the hope of peace. The evocations of a lost rural world for which Adam Bede was so resoundingly praised on its publication in 1859 are charged in Eliot's hands with a personal compassion that intensifies the novel's outer dramas of seduction and betrayal and inner dramas of moral growth and redemption. nbsp;With an introduction by Leonee Ormond
Bleak House by Charles Dickens Widely regarded as Dickens’s masterpiece, Bleak House centers on the generations-long lawsuit Jarndyce and Jarndyce, through which “whole families have inherited legendary hatreds.” Focusing on Esther Summerson, a ward of John Jarndyce, the novel traces Esther’s romantic coming-of-age and, in classic Dickensian style, the gradual revelation of long-buried secrets, all set against the foggy backdrop of the Court of Chancery. Mixing romance, mystery, comedy, and satire, Bleak House limns the suffering caused by the intricate inefficiency of the law. The text of this Modern Library Paperback Classic was set from the first single-volume edition, published by Bradbury & Evans in 1853, and reproduces thirty-nine of H. K. Browne’s original illustrations for the book.
The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning by Robert Browning The publication anonymously of Pauline, in January, 1833, was followed by a period of travel. He went to Russia nominally as secretary to the Russian consul-general, and became so enamored of diplomatic life that he essayed to enter it, but failed so strong a hold did it take on him that he would have been glad in later life if his son had chosen this career.
Hard Times by Charles Dickens "Facts alone are wanted in life." The children at Mr. Gradgrind's school are sternly ordered to stifle their imaginations and pay attention only to cold, hard reality. The effects of Gradgrind's teaching on his own children, Tom and Louisa, are particularly profound and leave them ill-equipped to deal with the unpredictable desires of the human heart. Luckily for them, they have a friend in Sissy Jupe, the child of a circus clown, who retains her warm-hearted, compassionate nature despite the pressures around her. By 1854, when Hard Times was published, Charles Dickens' magisterial progress as a writer had come to incorporate a many-sided, coherent vision of English society, both as it was and as he wished it to be. Hard Times, a classic Dickensian story of redemption set in a North of England town beset by industrialism, everywhere benefits from this vision - in the trenchancy of its satire, in its sweeping indignation at social injustice, and in the persistent humanity with which its author enlivens his largest and smallest incidents. (Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells THE INVISIBLE MAN tells the story of Griffin, a brilliant and obsessed scientist dedicated to achieving invisibility. Taking whatever action is necessary to keep his incredible discovery safe, he terrorizes the local village where he has sought refuge. Wells skilfully weaves the themes of science, terror and pride as the invisible Griffin gradually loses his sanity and, ultimately, his humanity.
Collected Works of Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling Vol. 1 of "The Collected Works of Rudyard Kipling" contains: Kim, The Man Who Would Be King, Under the Deodars and the short story collection "Wee Willie Winkie". Every book is complete and unabridged.
The Letters of Matthew Arnold, 1829-1859 by Matthew Arnold The University Press of Virginia edition of The Letters of Matthew Arnold, edited by Cecil Y. Lang, represents the most comprehensive and assiduously annotated collection of Arnold's correspondence available. When complete in six volumes, this edition will include close to four thousand letters, nearly five times the number in G.W.E. Russell's two-volume compilation of 1895.
Plays, Prose Writings, and Poems by Oscar Wilde Famed as a wit and bon viveur, Oscar Wilde lived up to his reputation. This selection of plays, poems and prose writings, introduced by Terry Eagleton, includes "The Importance of Being Earnest", "Lady Windermere's Fan", "The Picture of Dorian Gray", "The Critic as an Artist", Apologia", "The Soul of a Man Under Socialism", "Letter to Robert Ross", "Requiescat" and "The Ballad of Reading Goal". Terry Eagleton is the author of "Criticism and Ideology", "Marxism and Literary Criticsm" and "Literary Theory: An Introduction".
The Poems and Plays of Robert Browning by Robert Browning The Poems and Plays This volume has been planned for the less experienced reader of Browning; the more advanced reader is satisfied only with the complete edition. The Introduction, therefore, aims merely to suggest briefly an approach to Browning, to point out such difficulties as often perplex one who reads Browning for the first time, and to state simply a few of the poet's fundamental ideas.
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club by Charles Dickens This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Tennyson's Poetry: Authoritative Texts, Contexts, Criticism by Alfred Tennyson It includes selections from the 1830, 1832, and 1842 volumes, together with songs from The Princess and In Memoriam; complete poems from the middle period, including Maud, Enoch Arden, and nine Idylls of the King, including the Dedication; and a generous offering from the late period, 1872-92.
The Time Machine by H. G. Wells Unabridged value reproduction of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells is a must-have collectable for every bookshelf. The Time Machine is nonstop action that every other time travelling sci-fi tale must compare itself against.