First serialized in 1908, “Martin Eden” is Jack London’s classic and tragic tale of its title character and his struggle to become a writer. Martin Eden is an idealistic and self-educated young man who struggles to overcome poverty and a lack of opportunities in a quest to become an educated and successful artist. He hopes to find acceptance in the world of the wealthy and refined, though he finds it hard to shake off his coarse working-class ba ...
First published serially in 1861, Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s “Lady Audley’s Secret” is the wildly successful Victorian-era sensation novel. Sensation novels were very popular in English literature in the 1860s and 1870s. The novels were a combination of realism and romance and were usually tales of terrible crimes, such as murder, kidnapping, bigamy, adultery, and theft, occurring in otherwise normal, tranquil domestic settings. “Lady Audley’s Sec ...
Despite a declining popularity throughout his career, Anthony Trollope has become one of the most notable and respected English novelists of the Victorian Era. His penetrating novels on political, social and gender issues of his day have placed him among such nineteenth century literary icons as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot. Trollope penned 47 novels in his career, in addition to various short stories, travel books, and biograp ...
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, whose gothic style and progressive ideas have had a permanent influence on literary history. Daughter of political philosopher William Godwin and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley quickly developed ideas about female independence, sexual freedom, and how to compromise in the face of nineteenth century English convention. Her 1826 ...
First published anonymously in 1814, “Waverley” was Sir Walter Scott’s first novel and one of his most popular. The story is set in the Scotland of 1745 amidst the Jacobite uprising and follows the young Edward Waverley, an English officer in the Hanoverian army. He is sent to Scotland and while on leave from training he visits friends of his family in the Lowlands and the Highlands. Waverley meets lairds and chieftains, and he is soon caught up ...
Fully entitled “Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of ’Eighty,” this novel was Dickens’ first attempt at a historical novel. As such, it is the precursor to his more famous “A Tale of Two Cities”, in which his exploration of mob violence, and especially the effect of public events on individual lives, becomes apparent. This work centers on Barnaby Rudge, a mentally simple son, and his loving mother, who are a part of the small village of Epping ...
First serialized in 1845, Alexandre Dumas’ “Twenty Years After” is the second part of the “D’Artagnan Romances”, the first sequel to “The Three Musketeers”. It was followed by “The Vicomte de Bragelonne”, which was first serialized in 1847. Dumas’s beloved characters return for more adventurous duty, and as the title suggests, two decades have elapsed since D’Artagnan and his friends have prevailed over the evil machinations of Cardinal Richelie ...
“Five Children and It” is the enduringly popular children’s tale by English author Edith Nesbit, also well-known for her classic story “The Railway Children”. First published in 1902 in “Strand Magazine”, “Five Children and It” is a magical story that cleverly illustrates the wisdom of the saying “be careful what you wish for”. The novel begins when five siblings, who have recently moved from London to a house in the country, discover Psammead, ...
“Where Angels Fear to Tread” is the impassioned novel by E. M. Forster, the acclaimed English novelist and essayist. Published in 1905, the title was inspired by a quote from Alexander Pope: “For fools rush in where angels fear to tread”. This affecting and thought-provoking novel is the story of Lilia Herriton, an English widow, who while traveling with her friend Caroline Abbott in Italy, falls in love with Gino, a much younger Italian man. Th ...