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The Victorian novel.

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INDEX

1 The Victorian novel

2 Novelists
2.1 Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
2.2 The Brontë sisters: Charlotte (1816-1855) and Emily (1818-1848)
2.3 William Thackeray (1811-1863)
2.4 Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865)
2.5 Anthony Trollope (1815-1882)
2.6 Wilkie Collins (1824-1889)
2.7 George Eliot (1819-1880)
2.8 George Meredith (1828-1909)
2.9 Thomas Hardy (1840- 1928)
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INTRODUCTION
The Victorian era witnessed all the huge transformations the Industrial Revolution brought about.
Dramatic changes in all aspects of society and industry affected the country and abroad. New forms
of arts emerged. Architecture flourished. Literature found its way through poetry and prose. As for
the ruling monarch, Queen Victoria was the representative of morality and family in opposition to
the sexual, financial and personal scandals commonly associated with former members of the House
of Hanover. With her, the monarchy was no longer discredited. The Middle class could identify with
the model of family that Queen Victoria advocated. Queen Victoria remains the most celebrated
British monarch in history. Nevertheless, it was also a period of great self-complacency and frivolity,
extremely conservative in which people’s thoughts and actions that did not fit in the Victorian
models of morality were severely judged and punished.
Queen Victoria, christenesed Alexandrina Victoria, was the longest reigning monarch in UK history.
Queen Victoria was only 18 when she came to the throne upon the death of her uncle William IV
who had no legitimate children. Queen Victoria was born on 24 May, 1819 at Kensington Palace,
London. She had not reached her first year when her father died. Victoria partly belonged to a
family of Germans, from Hanover. Thus, Victoria’s first language was German. At a very early age
she learnt to speak English and French. Later she learnt Hindustani since she was also the ruler of
India. Victoria didn’t go to school. She was taught at home a range of different subjects: languages,
history, geography, and the Bible. She learnt to play the piano and to paint. At the age of 21, Victoria
married her cousin, Albert of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, a German Prince. Victoria had nine children, 40
grand-children and 37 great-grandchildren, scattered all over Europe. Queen Victoria ruled for 64
years (1837 to 1901).
Britain became the biggest and most powerful empire during the Victorian period. It was also an era
of great change in the social, artistic and political aspects in Britain. Industrialization and progress
spread in urban Britain. Factories and machinery were built and new towns emerged, altering the
landscape and the ways people lived and worked. Piped water, gas and, by the end of the century,
electricity have reached towns and cities. Population more than doubled from 16 million to 37 million,
causing a huge demand for food, clothes and housing. Emigration to new territories became an
ordinary practice. Holidays by the sea became fashionable. As regards transport, railways, originally
built to transport goods, were now a means people use to commuting. Abroad, there were several
wars being fought between the years 1850 and 1880. This period also gave rise to the creation of
a British Police Force. The late period of Queen Victoria’s reign was characterized by debate over
the cultural issues pertaining Britain, the 1867 Reform Act which gave the vote to every male adult
householder living in a borough constituency and the Trade Union of 1871, securing the legal status
of trade unions.

Have a look at topics 45, 47 and 48 of the present book to have a complete idea of the
evolution of Literature in general and the novel in particular.

1. Why do you think Queen Victoria in the most commemorated by the British?
2. List the several changes Britain experimented during Queen Victoria’s reign.
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1 The Victorian novel

Victorian literature speaks for an age that witnessed exceptionally greater changes than any that
had gone before in every aspect of life: material comforts, scientific knowledge and intellectual
enlightenment. Victorian literature becomes a transition between the writers of the Romantic period
and the explosion of new canons of the twentieth century literature. The novel in the 19th century
became the leading form of literature in English, often regarded as a high point in British literature.
There were several elements that characterized Victorian novels: they tended to be very long. Thus,
such long, dense novels require more active, attentive, self-conscious reading. Victorian novels were
plot-heavy. Victorian fiction was frequently published in serial form, often in weekly or monthly
instalments in magazines. The settings of the stories, whether rural or urban, interior or exterior,
portrayed the characters’ personalities and moods, and signalled the direction of the plot. Victorian
novels are frequently about upper-middle-class Englishmen in London and their environs. Yet
behind and around these men are women, workers and servants, characters who disappear to and
re-appear from places like India, Africa, Australia, the Orient, the West Indies, and the Middle East, and
go through processes of realization discovering how those experiences have change them. Victorian
novels often tackled themes around the emerging middle class and the manners and expectations
of this class, as opposed to the aristocrat forms dominating previous ages.
Victorian novels are sprinkled with allusions, images, figurative language, and themes of all sorts: to
other works of literature, to artists and works of art, to music, to mythology, to the Bible, to historical
events and figures, to contemporary social and political events. The Victorian novelists did not make
use of a simple concept of an omniscient, third-person narrator. This literature is basically romantic,
being this trait evident on the social side; on the aesthetic side the romantic traits are also present,
though not as aggressively as in the previous period.
The greatest novelists of magnificent stature are:
„„ Charles Dickens
„„ Brontë sisters, Charlotte and Emily
„„ William Thackeray
„„ Elizabeth Gaskell
„„ Anthony Trollope
„„ Wilkie Collins
„„ George Eliot
„„ George Meredith
„„ Thomas Hardy

1. What characterized Victorian novels?

2. What social classes are mainly described in Victorian novels?
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2 Novelists
2.1 Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Charles Dickens belonged to this society. Born at Portsmouth, son of a clerk, moved to Chatham,
Kent when he was five and later to Camden Town, London when he was ten. He used to spend
much of his time outdoors or reading voraciously. His family was quite well-off, and he received
some education at the private William Giles’ school in Chatham. This time of prosperity did not last
long. His father’s inability to stay out of debt conducted him to Marshalsea debtors’ prison. His family,
except Charles, joined him in prison. Young Charles was forced to work to feed them all. He worked
in a factory, Warren’s boot-blacking factory. This early working experience and the fact that his father
became a debtor left him with a deep-rooted impression that would haunt him for the rest of his
personal and professional life. For instance, as a writer, he based several of his stories and characters
on life in debtors’ prison on the south bank of the River Thames. Little Dorrit, is an example of a satire
in which the character’s father, like his own, was a Marshalsea debtor.
After a few months, the whole family was released, though the family’s financial situation did not
improve until later. Dickens had to continue working at the boot-blacking factory. A mounting
resentment of his situation and people’s working conditions would later become major themes of
his works. Dickens attended school until he was fifteen. He started working as a law clerk, position
that helped broaden his scope of the poor’s suffering due to many injustices and bureaucracy. In
1834 he became a parliamentary reporter. He began writing sketches which formed is first collection
of pieces under the title Sketches by Boz published in 1836. This publication was followed by his
first novel which brought him recognition and financial ease, The Pickwick Papers. He got married
to Catherine Thompson Hogarth (1816-1879). They set up home in Bloomsbury, London, where
they had ten children. Being a proficient writer, he wrote one book after another. Promoting public
reading, he travelled to Europe and The United States on his reading tours. Once, while in The States,
he aroused the hostility of the American press when he laid out his advocacy for an international
copyright law and his support for the abolition of slavery. He died at the age of 58. There was great
public grief at his death. He was buried in Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey.
As regards his works, his main concerns were the analysis and description of society in England, and
the study of economic measures oppressing the poor. His works attempted to unveil social evils, to
imprint humanitarian alternatives to radical doctrines, to improve social conditions. The settings of
his novels were mostly poor, devastated surroundings. For example, his realistic and ironic depictions
of industrial towns in Hard Times (1854), underscored the adverse effects of urbanization on the
working class. He resorted to humour and tenderness and a sense of familiarity through popular
speech to better reach his readers. Among his works, it can be found:
„„ Autobiographical novels: David Copperfield (1850). Major themes: discipline and maturity, being
David an optimistic, diligent boy. Another famous novel, regarded as semi-autobiographical is Great
Expectations (1861). Dickens resorted to his experience of life and people to carefully depict his
characters. Considered one of the most influential novels, Great Expectations portrays the young
boy Philip known as ‘Pip’ and his growing maturity through life after an early meeting with the
escaped convict Abel Magwitch, who he treated kindly despite his fear. The nature of Pip also had
some relation to the author himself. Dickens’s major themes are affection, loyalty, and conscience
which prove more important than social improvement, wealth, and class. Ambition and self-
improvement adopt three forms in Great Expectations: moral, social, and educational; these motivate
Pip’s best and worst behaviours throughout the novel. First, Pip desires moral self-improvement.
He is totally demanding with himself when he acts immorally and feels guilty. Second, Pip desires
social improvement. In love with Estella, he longs to become a member of her social class and
8 TEMARIO

nurtures the possibility of becoming a gentleman. Third, Pip desires educational improvement
since a full education is a requirement to become a gentleman. Being an ignorant country boy,
he has no chances of achieving social improvement. Finally, through the examples of Joe, Biddy,
and Magwitch, Pip learns that social and educational progress are irrelevant to one’s real worth and
that principles and affection are to be valued above intellect and social standing. Throughout Great
Expectations, Dickens explores the clash of social classes in Victorian England, ranging from the
most miserable criminals, the poor peasants of the marsh country, the middle class to end with the
very rich. The theme of social class, then, is central to the plot and to the ultimate moral theme of
the book-Pip’s realization that wealth and class are less important than affection, loyalty, and inner
worth. Crime, guilt, and innocence are also explored throughout the novel largely through the
characters of the convicts and the criminal lawyer. On the whole, Pips learns to distinguish between
what really matters in life and the superficial standards people so much cherished.
„„ Historical novels: Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of ‘Eighty (1841) and A Tale of Two Cities (1859).
These novels narrate the years leading to the French Revolution. In the latter, the setting alternates
between England and France. It was written during a period of great change in Dickens’ own life:
the collapse of his marriage, the early period of his All the Year Round, a periodical, all contributed
to the writing this stirring tale.
„„ Social novels: Oliver Twist (1837) and A Christmas Carol (1843). In the former, Dickens attempted
to portray social evils as child labour and to depict hypocrisies of the times. The latter was written
in a moment of decline of Christmas traditions in an attempt to vindicate moral values over
accumulation of wealth.
„„ State-of-the-nation novel: Hard Times- for These Times (1854): Perhaps the least known of all
Dickens’s novels, Hard Times was conceived as a social-protest novel which attempted to reveal
the cruel impact of nineteenth-century industrial society upon the people living in industrial
England. Hard Times was mainly concerned with industrial society. Having a utilitarian ethic;
English life was no longer organic but lived according to a wicked theory which allowed the
rich and powerful to oppress their employees. Freedom, humour and art are symbolized by the
circus performers; Dickens contrasts the life of imagination with the life of utility. Dickens, thus,
criticized the schooling system as well as utilitarian doctrine which imposed utilitarian education
and philosophy; factories, Trade Unions, schools exerting power over the unprotected poor.

2.2 The Brontë sisters: Charlotte (1816-1855) and Emily (1818-1848)

XX Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte was born on April 21, 1816 in Yorkshire, England. Being raised in a strict Anglican home by
her clergyman father and a religious aunt after her mother and two eldest siblings died, she is said to
be the most dominant and ambitious of the sisters. In spite of having attended the Clergy Daughter’s
School at Cowan Bridge, she and her sister Emily were mostly educated at home. To keep the family
together at home, Charlotte planned to keep a school for girls at Haworth. In February 1842 she and
Emily went to Brussels to learn foreign languages and school management at the Pension Héger.
She was a devout writer, getting to publish her first novel, Jane Eyre, in 1847 under the manly
pseudonym Currer Bell. The book criticises society’s treatment of impoverished women. It became
an immediate hit. Her success extended to Shirley in 1848 and Vilette in 1853.
Charlotte had to overcome the deaths of the Bronte siblings; her brother, Branwell, and Emily
who died in 1848. Anne died the following year. In 1854, Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls,
but died during her pregnancy in 1855. The first novel she ever wrote, The Professor, was published
posthumously in 1857.
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XX Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë was born on July 30, 1818, Thornton, Yorkshire, Eng. English novelist and poet who
produced but one novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), a highly imaginative novel of passion and hate set
on the Yorkshire moors. Emily was perhaps the greatest of the three Brontë sisters, silent and reserved,
experimented clashing inner feelings that she masterly poured in her novel. In 1845 Charlotte came
across some poems by Emily, and this led to the discovery that all three sisters Charlotte, Emily, and
Anne had written verse. A year later they published jointly a volume of verse, Poems by Currer, Ellis
and Acton Bell, the initials of these pseudonyms being those of the sisters; it contained 21 of Emily’s
poems, and a consensus of later criticism has accepted the fact that Emily’s verse alone reveals true
poetic genius.
By midsummer of 1847 Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Anne’s Agnes Grey had been accepted for joint
publication, though publication of the three volumes was delayed until the appearance of their
sister Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, which was immediately and hugely successful. Wuthering Heights, when
published in December 1847, was not wholly accepted at first; critics were hostile, calling it too
savage, too animal-like, and clumsy in construction. Only later did it come to be considered one of
the finest novels in the English language.
Soon after the publication of her novel, Emily’s health began to fail rapidly. She had been ill for some
time. She died of tuberculosis in December 1848.

2.3 William Thackeray (1811-1863)

Thackeray was born on July 18, 1811, Calcutta, India. After his father’s death, he was sent to England.
There, he was educated at Charterhouse and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He studied law and
painting but as soon as he realized he would not succeed in painting, he quit and devoted himself
to write. Soon he became a prolific writer for periodicals, using a variety of pen names. In 1836
he married a poor Irish girl, Isabella Shawe with whom he had three daughters. Their first child,
Anne Thackeray Ritchie (1837-1919), became a writer herself whose impressionistic texts impressed
Virginia Woolf.
William’s early writings appeared in volumes as The Book of Snobs (1848), a collection of his articles
from Punch; and Miscellanies (1855-57), which includes the historical novel Barry Lyndon (1844). His
fame came with the novel Vanity Fair (1847-48). Set at the time of the Napoleonic wars, Thackeray
created one of the most fascinating immoral female characters, Becky Sharp. The book brought
Thackeray prosperity and made him a recognised author and popular lecturer in Europe and in the
United States. His success went on with Henry Esmond (1852), set in the early 18th century. Pendennis
(1848–50) is partly an autobiography. In his time he was regarded as the only possible rival of Charles
Dickens for his thorough descriptions of contemporary life.

2.4 Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865)

Mrs. Gaskell was born on September 29, 1810, in Chelsea, England. She began writing in middle age.
Cranford (1853), her most popular novel, and the unfinished Wives and Daughters (1864–66), perhaps
her best, are about the lives of country villagers. Mary Barton (1848), Ruth (1853), and North and South
(1855) analyse social problems of the urban working class. In 1857 she wrote the first biography of
her friend Charlotte Brontë.
10 TEMARIO

2.5 Anthony Trollope (1815-1882)

Anthony Trollope was born on April 24, 1815, in London. Trollope led a dull almost unhappy life
until his youth. He had a job as a junior clerk in the General Post Office, but he was then transferred
as a postal surveyor to Ireland, he began to enjoy a social life. In 1844 he married Rose Heseltine,
an Englishwoman and embarked upon a literary career full of energy and versatility. He became
a successful English novelist. His best loved and most famous work was a series of books set in
the imaginary English county of Barsetshire. He also wrote realistic novels of political life. One of
his greatest strengths was a sound, consistent vision of the social structures of Victorian England,
which he masterly depicted in his books with unusual solidity. He wrote The Warden (1855), a novel
that revealed the author’s careful study of the warden of an old people’s home. Trollope produced
five other books set in Barsetshire in the next twelve years: Barchester Towers (1857), the funniest of
the series, Doctor Thorne (1858), the best picture of a social system of the times based on birth and
the ownership of land, Framley Parsonage (1861), The Small House at Allington (1864), and The Last
Chronicle of Barset (serially 1866-67; 1867).
Before 1868, he had produced 18 novels apart from the Barsetshire group: Orley Farm (serially, 1861-
62; 1862), and Can You Forgive Her? (serially, 1864–65; 1865), the first of his political novels. Around
1869 Trollope’s most interesting period as a writer began. He Knew He Was Right (serially, 1868-69;
1869), a story dealing with an obsessive and jealous wealthy man and his innocent wife. Mainly
psychological studies include Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite (serially, 1870; 1871) and Kept in
the Dark (1882). Some of the later works, however, tend to be more satirical: The Eustace Diamonds
(serially, 1871–73; 1873), a study of the power of money on sexual relationships; The Way We Live Now
(serially, 1874–75; 1875), noteworthy for its villain-hero, the financier Melmotte; and Mr. Scarborough’s
Family (posthumously, 1883), dealing with property rights. Trollope, though spent his final years
secluded in a small Sussex village, was in London when he died, after having suffered from a paralysis.

2.6 Wilkie Collins (1824-1889)

Collins was born on January 8, 1824, in London, England. He became an early master of the mystery
story, and pioneer of detective fiction. Son of William Collins, the landscape painter, Wilkie, still a
young boy, developed a gift for inventing tales. His first published work was a memoir to his father,
who died in 1847, Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., R.A. (1848). His fiction followed shortly
after: Antonina; or, the Fall of Rome (1850) and Basil (1852). In 1851 he began an association with
Dickens who influenced his writings. There was mutual admiration. Under Dickens’ influence, Collins
developed a talent for characterization and humour. Collins began contributing serials to Dickens’
periodical Household Words, and his first major work, The Woman in White (1860), appeared in Dickens’
All the Year Round. Among his most successful subsequent books were No Name (1862), Armadale
(1866), and The Moonstone (1868). A master of intricate plot construction and ingenious narrative
technique, Collins turned in his later career from sensation fiction to fiction with a purpose, attacking
the marriage laws in Man and Wife (1870) and in Heart and Science (1883).

2.7 George Eliot (1819-1880)

George Eliot or Mary Ann Evans was born on November 22, 1819, in Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire,
England. Evans went to Mrs. Wallington’s boarding school at Nuneaton where she was inculcated a
strong evangelical piety. She dressed severely and engaged earnestly in good works. At school she
learnt French and Italian, and, after her mother’s death she returned home to look after her father.
She also studied Latin and German. In 1841 she moved with her father to Coventry.
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A book written by his brother-in-law, Charles Hennell, An Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity
(1838), precipitated Evans’ break with orthodoxy. This fact brought about confrontations with her
father. In spite of this, she lived with him until his death in 1849. She spent the winter of 1849–50
at Geneva. Afterwards, she decided to settle in London as a free-lance writer. For three years, until
1854, she served as subeditor of The Westminster. She met George Henry Lewes, the most versatile
of Victorian journalists. In July 1854, after the publication of her translation of Feuerbach’s Essence of
Christianity, they went to Germany together. At Weimar and Berlin she wrote some of her best essays
for The Westminster and translated Spinoza’s Ethics (still unpublished). She wrote early memories,
stories about a childhood episode in Chilvers Coton parish published in Blackwood’s Magazine
(1857) as «The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton», «Mr. Gilfil’s Love-Story» and «Janet’s
Repentance,» republished all three as Scenes of Clerical Life, 2 vol. (1858) under the pseudonym
George Eliot. She developed the method of psychological analysis characteristic of modern fiction.
Her major works include Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Felix Holt,
the Radical, 3 vol. (1866), Middlemarch (1871-72), and Daniel Deronda (1876).
Middlemarch (8 parts, 1871-72) is by general consent George Eliot’s masterpiece. Under her hand
the novel had developed from a mere entertainment into a highly intellectual form of art. Every
class of Middlemarch society is depicted from the landed gentry and clergy to the manufacturers
and professional men, the shopkeepers, publicans, farmers, and labourers. Several strands of plot are
interwoven to reinforce each other by contrast and parallel.
For nearly 25 years Lewes had fostered her genius. After his death in 1878, she spent secluded in
her home, seeing no one but his son Charles Lee Lewes; she devoted herself to completing the last
volume of his Problems of Life and Mind (1873-79) and founded the George Henry Lewes Studentship
in Physiology at Cambridge. She relied on her friend, John Walter Cross, a banker. George Eliot soon
began feel some kind of affection. They got married in May, 1880, being Cross 40 and Eliot 61 years
old. Again, she changed her name, this time to Mary Anne Cross. She died the same year in December.
She was buried at Highgate Cemetery.

2.8 George Meredith (1828-1909)

George Meredith was born on February 12, 1828. He lived in Portsmouth, where his father was a
tailor. When George was only five years old, his mother died. He had a sad childhood. As his father
declared himself bankrupt, George came to live with some relatives in the country. Attended a
boarding school and by the time he turned 15, he attended the Moravian school at Neuwied. Even
though he remained there less than two years, Meredith admitted that during that time he received
the best education ever. The school served to stimulate his intellect and taught him to respect
rationality, self-respect, sincerity and courage. He learnt to admire German music, poetry and the
German countryside. It marked the end of his formal schooling. At the age of 18, he concentrated
on writing poems and articles and making translations. Because they brought in little money, he
turned to writing prose. Meredith studied law or did any work that might allow him to enter the
legal profession. Instead, with the encouragement of Charnock and his literary friends, Meredith
began to write poetry and helped organize a monthly manuscript magazine. He met Thomas Love
Peacock’s daughter, Mary Ellen, whom he married in 1849. Many believed that he was inspired
by Mary’s personality to build up his heroines. After several miscarriages, Mary gave birth to one
son, Arthur in 1853. His first book of poetry came out in 1851. In 1855 he published The Shaving of
Shagpat, a fantasy, which got quite good reviews even though it did not achieve popular success.
Farina (1857) was his next publication which was even less successful. He struggled to do well in life
and support his family. However, his wife eloped with the artist Henry Wallis, leaving behind years of
hopelessness. In the Modern Love poems (1862), which are largely autobiographical, he did not put
the blame on the woman but rather described how both partners contributed to their marriage fall.
12 TEMARIO

In his novels he more than once portrayed sympathetically the witty woman trapped in a relationship
with a self-centered man. The novel The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859) is one of his finest works, being
rich in allusions, metaphors, lyrical prose, clever dialogues, and psychological insights. However, he
did not make much money out of it. Afterwards, he produced a comedy, Evan Harrington (1860),
and a volume of poems, Modern Love (1862). He finally won critical and popular acclaim with the
novels The Egoist (1879) and Diana of the Crossways (1885). His works are noted for their use of interior
monologue and their treatment of women as equals of men. Already at an old age, Meredith was
known as a great conversationalist, a fascinating storyteller who could talk for hours without boring
his listeners. Meredith became increasingly deaf and so crippled that at times he could not stand up.
After 1895 he stopped writing prose, but he continued writing poetry. His last collection of poems A
Reading of Life, with Other Poems was published in 1901. In 1905 he was awarded the Order of Merit.
He died on May 18, 1909.

2.9 Thomas Hardy (1840- 1928)

Thomas Hardy was born on June 2, 1840, in Dorset, England. He was a novelist and poet who
set much of his work in Wessex. Hardy was the eldest of the four children of Thomas Hardy, a
stonemason builder. As a child he was often ill. He went to school in Dorchester where he received
a good education in mathematics and Latin. Shortly before his 22nd birthday, he moved to London
and became a draftsman in the busy office of a leading ecclesiastical architect. He had to return to
Dorset by ill health in 1867. He experienced a decline in religious faith which forced him to quit his
early ambitions of a university education and eventual ordination as an Anglican priest. He devoted
himself to reading poetry and the methodical development of his own poetic skills. He wrote verses
in the 1860s which did not achieve massive popularity. It was then when he reluctantly turned to
prose.
In 1867-68 he wrote The Poor Man and the Lady, a novel which was never published. Having been
advised to write a less opinionated novel, Hardy produced a densely plotted novel, Desperate
Remedies (1871). His next novel, Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), Hardy found a voice much more
characteristically his own. In this book he resorts to humour to describe an episode of social change.
In March 1870, Hardy met his future wife, Emma, whom he married in 1874. She actively encouraged
and assisted him in his literary endeavours, and his next novel, A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873). Hardy was
offered to contribute with the prestigious Cornhill Magazine. The resulting novel, Far from the Madding
Crowd (1874), introduced Wessex for the first time and made Hardy famous by its agricultural settings
and its distinctive blend of humorous, melodramatic, pastoral, and tragic elements.
He also wrote The Hand of Ethelberta (1876), which was not very well criticized. However, The Return
of the Native (1878), was widely popular for its powerfully evoked setting of Egdon Heath, which was
based on the solemn countryside Hardy had evidenced as a child. His early experience of rural life,
with its seasonal rhythms and oral culture, was fundamental to his writing.
Hardy’s next works were The Trumpet-Major (1880), set in the Napoleonic period, and two more novels
generally considered «minor» A Laodicean (1881) and Two on a Tower (1882). Due to weak health,
Hardy and his wife moved to Wimborne in 1881 and to Dorchester in 1883. The Mayor of Casterbridge
(1886) incorporates recognizable details of Dorchester’s history and topography. In Hardy’s next
novel, The Woodlanders (1887), socioeconomic issues again become central. Wessex Tales (1888)
was the first collection of the short stories that Hardy had long been publishing in magazines. His
subsequent short-story collections are A Group of Noble Dames (1891), Life’s Little Ironies (1894), and
A Changed Man (1913). Hardy’s short novel The Well-Beloved (serialized 1892) reflects a somewhat
hostility to marriage closely related to frictions within his own marriage.
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Hardy’s final works were marked by the publication of Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the
Obscure (1895), which are widely considered his finest novels. In spite of being 19th century-novels,
they are thought to anticipate the 20th century most recurrent themes: Tess’ questioning society’s
sexual mores, having an illegitimate child, suffering rejection and being finally hanged for murdering
her original seducer. In Jude the Obscure the class-ridden educational system of the day is challenged
by the defeat of Jude’s earnest aspirations to knowledge.
Emma Hardy died in 1912. He devoted to write poems, most of which are considered to be his finest:
«After a Journey,» «The Voice,» and the other «Poems of 1912–13». In 1914 Hardy married Florence
Emily Dugdale. In his eighties, he published a fifth volume of verse, Moments of Vision (1917), and
wrote in secret an official «life» of himself for posthumous publication under the name of his widow.
In his nineties Hardy published two more poetry collections, Late Lyrics and Earlier (1922) and Human
Shows (1925), and put together the posthumously published Winter Words (1928). He died in 1928.

1. Who were the most representative novelists of the Victorian era?

2. Which were their most outstanding works?
3. Who interests you the most and why?
14 TEMARIO

CONCLUSION
This work aims at describing not only one of the most important times in the History
of British Literature, but also, to bring the greatest novelists closer, briefly narrating
their lives and most celebrated works. It is of vital importance to introduce readers
into analysing the context where a piece of writing unfolds, the historical events
and the novelist’s own experiences to better understand the motifs that have led
to his/her works. That is why; it has been offered a concise revision of the Victorian
times underpinned by the Industrial Revolution. This period in literature serves as
a link between the Romantic and the 20th century Literature.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY

„„ REFERED BIBLIOGRAPHY

ROGERS, Pat, ed.: The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997
This book provides enough reference to the historical period of the Victorian era as to the lives and works of
the most representative writers of the period. It is advisable to have this book for further and deeper reading.
SAMPSON, George: The concise Cambridge history of English literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1970
This is a detailed guide to Victorian Literature. In its chapter entitled «The nineteenth Century, Part II» there
is concise information as to the Victorian times as to its most outstanding artists. Also highly recommended.
STARCHEY, Lytton: Queen Victoria. Toronto: Elibron Classics, 2006
This book presents an excellent study of the life of Queen Victoria from infancy to old age. Well covered and
documented. For those with curiosity regarding Queen Victoria’s life, her marriage and family ties, this book is
quite informative.

„„ WEBLIOGRAPHY

In case of difficulty in finding the above books for reference, there are useful WebPages dealing with
the British Romantic period, the artists and their works:
Victorian era: Biblical Typology or Typological Interpretation: this link provides a complete description
of Victorian Literature.
http://www.victorianweb.org/religion/type/index.html
Encyclopaedia Britannica
http://www.britannica.com
Victorian novelists
http://www.questia.com/
English writers in the 19th century
http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/
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SUMMARY/OUTLINE
The Victorian novel.

1. The Victorian novel XXDickens’ Works

„„ Autobiographical novel:
„„ A transition between the writers of the Romantic period
−− David Copperfield (1850)
and the twentieth century literature.
„„ Semi-autobiographical novel:
„„ Victorian novels: very long, dense novels.
−− Great Expectations (1861)
„„ Plot-heavy.
„„ Historical novels:
„„ Frequently published in serial form in magazines. −− Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of ‘Eighty (1841)
„„ The settings of the stories portrayed the characters’ −− A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
personalities and moods.
„„ Social novels:
„„ Frequently about upper-middle-class and their environs. −− Oliver Twist (1837)
„„ Often tackled themes around the emerging middle class −− A Christmas Carol (1843)
and the manners in opposition to the aristocrat forms „„ State-of-the-nation novel:
dominating previous ages. −− Hard Times- for These Times (1854)
„„ Allusions, images, figurative language, and themes of
all sorts: to other works of literature, to artists and works
of art, to music, to mythology, to the Bible, to historical
2.2. The Brontë sisters: Charlotte and Emily
events and figures, to contemporary social and political
events. 2.2.1.  Charlotte Brontë
„„ Basically romantic on the social side.
„„ The most dominant and ambitious of the sisters.
„„ On the aesthetic side the romantic traits are also present,
„„ A devout writer.
though not as aggressively as in the previous period.
„„ Overcame the deaths of the Bronte siblings.
„„ Died during her pregnancy in 1855.
2. Novelists XXCharlotte Brontë’s works
„„ Jane Eyre, 1847
2.1. Charles Dickens „„ Vilette, 1853

„„ Born at Portsmouth. „„ The Professor, published posthumously, 1857

„„ Suffered child labour when his father was imprisoned for 2.2.2.  Emily Brontë
debt.
„„ A mounting resentment of his unhappy childhood „„ The greatest of the three Brontë sisters.
became major themes of his works. „„ Silent and reserved.
„„ Married to Catherine Thompson Hogarth, had ten children. „„ Her verse relied on true poetic genius.
„„ As a young adult became a parliamentary reporter. „„ Died of tuberculosis in December 1848.
„„ Began writing sketches (Sketches by Boz, 1836).
XXEmily Brontë’s work
„„ The Pickwick Papers (1836-37), his first novel.
„„ Wuthering Heights (1847)
„„ His works attempted to analyze and describe social evils
in the English society, denounce poor oppression, imprint
humanitarian alternatives to radical doctrines and depict 2.3. William Thackeray
industrial towns as in Hard Times (1854).
„„ Born in Calcutta, India.
Promoting public reading, travelled to Europe and The United
States died at the age of 58. „„ Sent to England after his father’s death.
„„ Educated at Charterhouse and at Trinity College,
Cambridge.
18 TEMARIO

„„ Studied law and painting. 2.6. Wilkie Collins

„„ Became a prolific writer for periodicals.
„„ Born 1824, London, England.
„„ Married a poor Irish girl, had three daughters.
„„ Early master of the mystery story.
„„ Popular writer and lecturer in Europe and in the United
States. „„ Pioneer of detective fiction.
„„ Gifted for inventing tales.
XXWilliam Thackeray’s works
„„ Associated and influenced by Dickens, contributed with
„„ The Book of Snobs (1848) serials to Dickens’ periodical Household Words.
„„ Barry Lyndon (1844) „„ A talent for characterization and humour.
„„ Vanity Fair (1847-48) „„ A master of intricate plot construction and ingenious
„„ Henry Esmond (1852) narrative technique.
„„ Pendennis (1848-50) XXWilkie Collins’ works
„„ Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., R.A. (1848)
2.4. Elizabeth Gaskell „„ Antonina; or, the Fall of Rome (1850)
„„ Began writing at middle age. „„ Basil (1852).
„„ Social problems described in her works. „„ The Woman in White (1860)
„„ Wrote the first biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë. „„ No Name (1862)
„„ Armadale (1866)
XXElizabeth Gaskell’s works
„„ The Moonstone (1868)
„„ Cranford (1853)
„„ Man and Wife (1870)
„„ Wives and Daughters (1864–66)
„„ Heart and Science (1883)
„„ Mary Barton (1848)
„„ Ruth (1853)
2.7. George Eliot
„„ North and South (1855)
„„ George Eliot or Mary Ann Evans, born in 1819, Chilvers
Coton, Warwickshire, England.
2.5. Anthony Trollope
„„ A strong evangelical piety.
„„ Born in London in 1815. „„ Learnt French, Italian, Latin and German.
„„ Unhappy life until his youth. „„ Questioned and broke with orthodoxy.
„„ A postal surveyor to Ireland. „„ Settled in London as a free-lance writer.
„„ Married Rose Heseltine, an Englishwoman. „„ Subeditor of The Westminster.
„„ Became a successful English novelist. „„ Met George Henry Lewes, the most versatile of Victorian
„„ Imaginary settings in his novels (Barsetshire). journalists.
„„ Also wrote realistic novels of political life. „„ Translated Feuerbach’s Essence of Christianity.
„„ Sound, consistent vision of the social structures of „„ Went to Germany with Lewes.
Victorian England. „„ Wrote early memories, stories about childhood episodes
„„ Died, after having suffered from a paralysis. in published in Blackwood’s Magazine (1857) as «The Sad
Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton», «Mr. Gilfil’s Love-
XXAnthony Trollope’s works Story» and «Janet’s Repentance,» republished all three as
„„ The Warden (1855 Scenes of Clerical Life, 2 vol. (1858) under the pseudonym
George Eliot.
„„ Barchester Towers (1857)
„„ Psychological analysis characteristic of modern fiction.
„„ Doctor Thorne (1858
„„ Depiction of social classes.
„„ Framley Parsonage (1861)
„„ Lewes had fostered her genius.
„„ The Small House at Allington (1864)
„„ Founded the George Henry Lewes Studentship in
„„ The Last Chronicle of Barset (serially 1866-67; 1867)
Physiology at Cambridge after his death.
„„ Orley Farm (serially, 1861-62; 1862)
„„ Relied on her friend, John Walter Cross, 21 years younger,
„„ Can You Forgive Her? (serially, 1864-65; 1865) whom she married.
„„ He Knew He Was Right (serially, 1868-69; 1869)
„„ Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite (serially, 1870; 1871)
„„ Kept in the Dark (1882)
„„ The Eustace Diamonds (serially, 1871-73; 1873)
„„ The Way We Live Now (serially, 1874-75; 1875)
„„ Mr. Scarborough’s Family (posthumously, 1883)
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XXGeorge Eliot’s works 2.9. Thomas Hardy

„„ Adam Bede (1859) „„ Born in 1840, Dorset, England.
„„ The Mill on the Floss (1860) „„ Often ill as a child.
„„ Silas Marner (1861) „„ Moved to London and became a draftsman in an
„„ Felix Holt, the Radical, 3 vol. (1866) ecclesiastical architect’s office.
„„ Middlemarch (1871-72) „„ A decline in religious faith.
„„ Daniel Deronda (1876). „„ Devoted to reading poetry.
„„ She Problems of Life and Mind (1873-79) „„ Wrote verses and prose.
„„ Advised to write a less opinionated novel.
2.8. George Meredith „„ Densely plotted novels.

„„ A sad childhood. „„ Humour to describe social scenes.

„„ Lived with some relatives in the country after his father’s „„ Famous for his agricultural settings and distinctive blend
bankruptcy. of humorous, melodramatic, pastoral, and tragic elements.

„„ The school stimulated his intellect and taught him to „„ His early experience of rural life, with its seasonal rhythms
respect rationality, self-respect, sincerity and courage. and oral culture, was fundamental to his writing.

„„ Admired German music, poetry and the German „„ His last novels, in spite of being 19th century-novels, they
countryside. are thought to anticipate the 20th century most recurrent
themes: sexuality, illegitimate children, society’s rejection.
„„ At the age of 18, wrote poems, articles and made
translations. XXThomas Hardy’s works
„„ Turned to writing prose for money. „„ The Poor Man and the Lady (1867-68)
„„ Studied law. „„ Desperate Remedies (1871)
„„ Met Thomas love peacock’s daughter, Mary Ellen, whom „„ Under the Greenwood Tree (1872)
he married in 1849.
„„ A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873)
„„ One son, Arthur.
„„ Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)
„„ Had low incomes, found it hard to support his family.
„„ The Hand of Ethelberta (1876)
„„ His wife elopement with the artist Henry Wallis.
„„ The Return of the Native (1878)
„„ Portrayed sympathetically the witty woman trapped in a
relationship with a self-centered man. „„ The Trumpet-Major (1880)

„„ Allusions, metaphors, lyrical prose, clever dialogues, and „„ A Laodicean (1881)

psychological insights. „„ Two on a Tower (1882)
„„ Use of interior monologue. „„ The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
„„ Treatment of women as equals of men. „„ The Woodlanders (1887)
„„ A great conversationalist, a fascinating storyteller. „„ Wessex Tales (1888)
„„ Became deaf and crippled. „„ A Group of Noble Dames (1891)
„„ Awarded the order of merit. „„ Life’s Little Ironies (1894)
„„ Died on May 18, 1909. „„ A Changed Man (1913)
„„ The Well-Beloved (serialized 1892)
XXGeorge Meredith
„„ Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891)
„„ The shaving of Shagpat (1855)
„„ Jude the Obscure (1895)
„„ Farina (1857)
„„ Modern Love poems (1862)
„„ The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859)
„„ Evan Harrington (1860)
„„ The Egoist (1879)
„„ Diana of the Crossways (1885)
„„ A Reading of Life, with Other Poems (1901)