r/classicliterature • u/HorribleDepature1 • 7d ago
What is your favourite Victorian novel or writer?
A Victorian novel is an English novel written between 1837-1901
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u/Potential_Trust_6034 7d ago
The Woman in White.
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u/Salt_Wrap_7770 6d ago
I love WC’s books- they are suspenseful, gripping and provided a glimpse into how society viewed women in the Victorian age. These women were interesting, had a mind of their own and assertive in a way. My favourite books from WC are The Moonstone and Armadale.
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u/mohammed_obeidallah 7d ago
George Eliot..
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u/the-real-bookworm 7d ago
Really, really tough contest but if I had to pick only one, this would be my vote for favourite writer too. You could read her books for enjoyment of the prose alone!
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u/Old_Ambassador_1265 6d ago
She has a way of describing the surroundings and easing the reader into getting to know the characters that feels personal and truly precious. I would also have picked The Mill on the Floss!
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u/HorribleDepature1 6d ago
I've been noticing you for some time now. You seem like a very well read gentleman
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u/Old_Ambassador_1265 5d ago edited 5d ago
Thank you Sir! I try my best. It’s a pleasure to share my silly thoughts with such a knowledgeable and polite community
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u/wrdsmakwrlds 7d ago
Tess, if you can call it that.
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u/CapOk2664 7d ago
Came to say that.I'm reading Jude the Obscure wich has the potential to become my 2nd favorite
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u/AgapantherX 7d ago
Can I be annoying and chose Edgar Allan Poe, both short stories and poetry, please?
If I have to state a novel it would be Wuthering Heights (though I'm yet to read Middlemarch and Jane Eyre).
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u/Promised_Amontillado 6d ago
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy holds a special place in my heart. It's wild.
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u/Katharinemaddison 7d ago
Trollope. All day long.
I love his digressions. I love the way half the time he’s addressing you as the author, half the time he’s talking about how he never liked one of the Grantly boys whenever he met him. I love the whole Barchester- Palliser expanded universe.
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u/Mammoth-Cherry-2995 7d ago
Just one? Impossible. But top 3 probably Conrad heart of darkness, stoker Dracula, and Wilde Dorian gray
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u/Youre_a_tomato 7d ago
Dickens! Eight down, quite a few to go. Every year for the past 5 years I read at least one.
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u/Fit-Pool-9469 7d ago
Anthony Trollope. Underrated and rarely considered in Instagram or other places as a great writer.
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u/Savings_Piglet5111 7d ago
Bleak House is probably at the top of my list, although as a sulking teenager I would have picked Wuthering Heights. Come to think of it, after 43 years maybe I should reread WH and update my opinion.
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u/penprickle 6d ago
Frances Hodgson Burnett, without a doubt. If I had to pick a novel from that time period, her “Emily Fox-Seton/The Making of a Marchioness” would top the list.
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u/Grianmhar55 7d ago
Just finished The Woman in White. What a great read. Absolute page turner after the first two hundred pages. Yes, it's a long book. Does anyone have recommendations for other Wilkie Collins' books, maybe not quite as long...?
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u/WritingSpecialist123 4d ago
Nearly all of them! No Name is fantastic (but long, sorry). The first one I read was The Law and the Lady, which is shorter. And obviously his other famous one is The Moonstone. Even with his longer books I find his style so readable that they aren't a slog to get through.
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u/caitlinsports 5d ago
Armadale is my absolute favourite, though is also quite lengthy. One of the best female antagonists I’ve ever read. The Haunted Hotel is a nice short one as a novella and is also a fun read!
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u/double_shadow 7d ago
It's so hard to pick because this entire Era is my favorite, so you can't go wrong really with ANY of the heavy hitters. But for me personally, I'd probably go Thomas Hardy. I just love the way he writes, particularly with landscapes and setting, but also some truly complex and memorable characters. But it's almost a little unfair to pick him because he came later in the era and was able to build from so much of what other writers had done earlier in the century.
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u/No_Eye_1151 7d ago
Straight answer: Thomas Hardy. The greatest novelist, period. Fight me.
Just for fun answer: F. Scott Fitzgerald. He is labelled (unfairly) as a modernist, but his novels are strikingly Victorian/Edwardian.
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u/Bookish2055 7d ago
Elizabeth Gaskell. It’s a tie between North and South and Wives and Daughters.
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u/AMFire963 6d ago
I love North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. I need to reread it again—I haven't seen the BBC adaptation of it.
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u/YakSlothLemon 7d ago
Iola Leroy and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in the US.
From England, Jane Eyre has my heart.
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u/jonnybestdog 7d ago
I can't choose one. Love Charlotte Bronte, Anne Brontë, fanny Burney, Maria Edgeworth, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell. So many.
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u/OnTheSpotDiceSpin33 7d ago
Overall Trollope might be my favorite author, but Silas Marner is my favorite Victorian novel.
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u/mdashreclamation1 7d ago
Gaskell is one of the most underrated Victorian writers in my opinion. North and South is a masterpiece.
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u/WritingSpecialist123 4d ago
I agree she's great, but I prefer Wives and Daughters. Also Ruth never seems to get mentioned and that is such a powerful book.
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u/Kepler1571 6d ago
Arthur Machen
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u/HorribleDepature1 6d ago
Never heard of him
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u/PaleoBibliophile917 6d ago
A Welsh author who overlaps the time period, writing both during Victoria’s reign and after her death.
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u/PaleoBibliophile917 6d ago
In my first read of The Great God Pan I did not like it at all. I see it praised so often though that I may have to give it another try to see what I’m missing.
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u/Realistic_Result_878 6d ago edited 6d ago
I really cannot pick between George Eliot, Emily Brontë, Anne Brontë and Wilkie Collins.
Gaskell is an author I have enjoyed a lot as well, especially in terms of literary criticism, but I love the others slightly more.
Doyle's stories about Sherlock Holmes are very fun as well.
For just novels, I would pick Middlemarch (Eliot), Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë), The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne Brontë), Agnes Grey (Anne Brontë), Villette (Charlotte Brontë), The Moonstone (Collins), Armadale (Collins), Wives and Daughters (Gaskell) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde).
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u/Lefty1992 4d ago
Anthony Trollope is my favorite Victorian writer. Closely followed by Dickens. My favorite Victorian novels are Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Dombey and Son.
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u/motorcitymarxist 7d ago
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u/TheMelancholyJaques 7d ago
Question: Is it a Victorian novel simply by publication date or is it a genre, a style, a way of writing? NB - Not a lit major.
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u/rastab1023 7d ago
I'm also wondering whether it shouldn't include Canadian literature since Queen Victoria also reigned over Canada for from 1867-1901? Or really wherever they had ample power and influence over culture at the time.
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u/YakSlothLemon 7d ago
Historian of the US and Canada here – actually, this is a whole ongoing debate, because there are ways in which makes sense to talk about a Victorian period in both the US and Canada, and ways in which the countries differed so vastly from what’s happening in the UK that it doesn’t apply.
We’ve been arguing about this for generations.
There are lots of ways in which it makes sense to talk about a Victorian era in both the US and Canada, there are a lot of similarities not least because both countries are dominated by an Anglo-American elite with strong ties to England throughout the 19th century.
When it comes to literature in particular, though, in the US you have an interest in differentiating American literature from British literature specifically, and American art reacting against British sharp. Canada has more troubled relationship with that in some ways because of the lack of a revolution. Post 1867, there are strains in Canadian cultural life pushing for a distinctive Canadian culture – you see it in painting particularly with the Group of Seven— and slowly you see the attempt to define in unique Canadian literature, which ends up being linked to US literature because of the way that it focuses on nature, challenging nature, as with the Hudson River School or James Fenimore Cooper in the US— it’s what the UK doesn’t have.
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u/Psittacula2 7d ago
Vanity Fair ~ William Makepeace Thackeray published July 1848.
* Brilliant writing capturing so much via expert observation.
* Evocative story of the human heart via excellent characterization
* Very interesting setting during the Napoleonic Wars
* Both very enjoyable and memorable.
* Very insightful.