Artist: Fernand Toussaint
Oh, the Victorians. I have difficult relationships with most Victorian novelists. That the Brontë sisters, who I so dislike, are so closely linked with this period does it no favour in my eyes. But then it did produce two of my favourite novelists, Thackeray and Gaskell, so surely it is worth giving more attention to. As a teenager I perhaps read too much Victorian fiction, gorging myself on sensational plots and strict moral codes until I little appetite left for either.
Now, seeing the Victorian Literature Challenge 2011 advertised on other blogs, I wonder if it isn’t time to give the Victorians another chance. I’m not sure whether I’ll officially join the challenge but I’m certainly contemplating it and, if nothing else, it has provided an excuse for me to make a list (and I do love lists).
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
My favourite 19th Century novel, bar none (yes Janeites, I love this even more than my beloved Emma). Becky Sharp only becomes more delightful with every rereading and my affection for Dobbin knows no bounds.
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
I still haven’t read this. Shame on me, I know, particularly since everyone else seems to adore it.
Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
Another of those novels that always earns a place on my favourites list. Gaskell is at her best here with the loyal Molly, the fickle Cynthia, and the superbly comedic Hyacinth. I am also terribly fond of Roger, who apparently not every reader views as the ideal romantic hero (fools, all of them!).
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
I’ve yet to finish any Dickens novel but this is always the one I’ve been most interested in. Let us hope that if I choose to start it I’m able to see it through to the end.
Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope
Carolyn reviewed this last week and I’ve heard great things about Trollope in general. Where better to start than with the first of the Palliser’s books? I’ve been promised politics and many, many pages – usually a recipe for success with me.
Tom Brown’s Schooldays by Thomas Hughes
Because it’s one of those novels I feel like I should have read but still haven’t.
King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard
For fun. This is the kind of Victorian lit I like most: the fantastical, the adventurous, the kind to inspire the imaginations of readers young and old.
Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling
One of the few Kipling works I haven’t read.
Harvey Cheyne is the over-indulged son of a millionaire. When he falls overboard from an ocean liner he is rescued by a Portuguese fisherman and, initially against his will, joins the crew of the We’re Here for a summer.
Esther Waters by George Moore
Described as the story “of a mother’s fight for the life of her illegitimate son” I have to admit that I’m mostly interested in this novel because it is also considered “one of the finest of naturalistic novels”. Aside from Zola, I haven’t read many other European naturalist novels.
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
Because I feel like I should, even though I can’t seem to work up much enthusiasm for it.
Hester by Margaret Oliphant
The story of the aging but powerful Catherine Vernon, and her conflict with the young and determined Hester, whose growing attachment to Edward, Catherine’s favorite, spells disaster for all concerned.
The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner
Lyndall, Schreiner’s articulate young feminist, marks the entry of the controversial New Woman into nineteenth-century fiction. Raised as an orphan amid a makeshift family, she witnesses an intolerable world of colonial exploitation. Desiring a formal education, she leaves the isolated farm for boarding school in her early teens, only to return four years later from an unhappy relationship. Unable to meet the demands of her mysterious lover, Lyndall retires to a house in Bloemfontein, where, delirious with exhaustion, she is unknowingly tended by an English farmer disguised as her female nurse. This is the devoted Gregory Rose, Schreiner’s daring embodiment of the sensitive New Man.
A cause célèbre when it appeared in London, The Story of an African Farm transformed the shape and course of the late-Victorian novel. From the haunting plains of South Africa’s high Karoo, Schreiner boldly addresses her society’s greatest fears – the loss of faith, the dissolution of marriage, and women’s social and political independence.
East Lynne by Ellen Wood
When the aristocratic Lady Isabel abandons her husband and children for her wicked seducer, more is at stake than moral retribution. Ellen Wood played upon the anxieties of the Victorian middle classes who feared a breakdown of the social order as divorce became more readily available and promiscuity threatened the sanctity of the family.
The Doctor’s Wife by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
The Doctor’s Wife is Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s rewriting of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary in which she explores her heroine’s sense of entrapment and alienation in middle-class provincial life married to a good natured but bovine husband who seems incapable of understanding his wife’s imaginative life and feelings. A woman with a secret, adultery, death and the spectacle of female recrimination and suffering are the elements which combine to make The Doctor’s Wife a classic women’s sensation novel. Yet, The Doctor’s Wife is also a self-consciously literary novel, in which Braddon attempts to transcend the sensation genre.
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
Describes a comic expedition by middle-class Victorians up the Thames to Oxford. It provides brilliant snap-shots of London’s playground in the late 1880s, where the fashionable steam-launches of river swells encounter the hired skiffs of city clerks. The medley of social vignettes, farcical incidents, descriptions of river fashions, and reflections on the Thames’s history, is interspersed with humorous anecdotes told by a natural raconteur.
The Captive Reader 
I’m not a fan of either Charlotte or Emily Bronte (I did love Tenant of Wildfell Hall) OR Charles Dickens, but I still consider myself a Victorian girl. lol
Your list was great fun; I want Wives & Daughters to be my next Gaskell (I’ve read Cranford, N&S, and Ruth). And I LOVE Trollope and Wilkie Collins, so I hope you have good luck with them!
It sounds like it’s about time for me to revisit Vanity Fair (I think I read it in 2004? Yes, because that’s when I got my driver’s license and I remember sitting in class reading it, lol) Oh Dobbins. 😀
I remember reading about The Story of an African Farm and being quite crank ythat my library didn’t carry it; now that I’m getting an ereader for Christmas, I hope I can find a copy online! The same goes for Margaret Oliphant (I’ve been wanting to give her a go for awhile) and Mary Elizabeth Braddon (I loved Lady Audley’s Secret but haven’t been able to get my hands on her other stuff). I havent’t heard of Ellen Wood, but East Lynne sounds quite interesting! I’m glad you included some more obscure Victorian authors; more for the TBR list. 😉
Three Men in a Boat is SUCH fun! At least, it was for me. 🙂 (I think listening to it on audio during a road trip made it even more special, lol)
Glad you enjoy the list Eva! Your enthusiasm for Wilkie Collins is one of the reasons The Woman in White made it on to my list.
I love the Victorians! If you decide to give them another chance I hope you find something you enjoy.
You have some great books on your list. The Woman in White and East Lynne are two of my favourite Victorian sensation novels. I also enjoyed The Doctor’s Wife and am hoping to read something else by Braddon soon. I still haven’t read anything by Elizabeth Gaskell so I’m definitely going to read one or two of her novels for this challenge. Our Mutual Friend is on my list too – I’m still undecided about Dickens after reading Bleak House recently, but I’m prepared to give him another chance!
Oh do read Gaskell soon! I adore her. Dickens and I have never had much success on previous attempts but I really am hoping that Our Mutual Friend will be more successful.
Oh, many of these are on my own TBR shelf. I have Vanity Fair on my “proposed list” for January (yes, I am addicted to lists, and I find I read more -and more purposefully – when I make them), and my 2nd dd and I are scheduled to read Wives and Daughters together this spring as part of her literature. I have several Trollope books on my shelf waiting for me and am hoping to get to them in 2011 as well, so yes, perhaps I should consider a “Victorian list” of my own! 🙂 I also have never read Three Men in a Boat — maybe a good summer read with my older two girls?
Fun topic!
Lists are a fine thing to be addicted to. I’ve been making reading lists since I was thirteen or fourteen and have no intentions of stopping now! Sounds like 2011 will be a great year for reading in your house!
I’m reading Vanity Fair and LOVING it. I’m only 100 pages in, and am terribly afraid it will decrease quality. This post gave me hope!
It might become my favorite 2010 if Thackeray keeps it up 🙂
So glad you’re loving Vanity Fair! In my opinion it just gets better and better as you continue!
Oh you are going to have some fun with these Claire! I ADORE the Victorians and am upset you don’t love the Brontes, but I can forgive!
Olive Schreiner is very interesting but also a little bit unfuriating so bear that in mind. And Victorian sensation novels are AMAZING – you’ll love them!
Thanks Rachel! Now I’m super intrigued by the Olive Schreiner!
Ooh, good list. I remember reading King Solomon’s Mines years ago and it is great fun. I’m halfway through Our Mutual Friend and I think it’s Dicken’s best novel, at least of the ones I’ve tried (I may have already told you that though?). Also I’ve never read Vanity Fair, despite very good intentions. 2011 will have to be the year for that. I hadn’t heard of The Doctor’s Wife before, how interesting.
Your mention of Our Mutual Friend definitely did encourage me to put it on this list (otherwise it would have been Dickens-less). I’d love to hear what you think of Vanity Fair, when you have a chance to read it!
Nice list! I haven’t read the Brontes yet, so I must refrain from commenting on that. Many of the novels and/or authors you mentioned are on my own classics list. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on them!
Thanks Erin! Expressing opinions about the Brontes either way is always dangerous – you’re sure to offend someone – so refraining for now is probably the best idea!
I like the Bronte sisters but can see how they could get annoying. 🙂 Wives and Daughters is one of my favorites too. I’ve been thinking of rereading it just to see if I still love it.
I never get tired of rereading any Gaskell but Wives and Daughters is the one I’m always happiest to come back to. I hope you enjoy it just as much on rereading!
I am a fan of Victorian novels in general, although I rather took exception to Vanity Fair and it’s anti-heroine, so perhaps my likes and dislikes will not be much help to you. For what it’s worth, I would second those recommending Trollope. The Barchester series, beginning with The Warden and then Barchester Towers, are enjoyable depictions of Victorian politics and church politics, the two overlapping closely. Can You Forgive Her is probably not the best the Palliser books, but it is always a good idea to begin series at the beginning.
I hope you enjoy your Victorian reading.
Thanks David. Sorry to hear that Becky Sharp wasn’t a success with you but very happy to have another endorsement for Trollope!
Great list, Claire. You’ve given me some good ideas for 2011 reading. Vanity Fair is a novel I’ve tried reading twice, but I’ve never been able to get through it. You are making me think that this year should be the one where I actually finish it. And though I don’t agree with you on the Brontes (Charlotte and Anne are two of my favourites though I don’t like Wuthering Heights), I do love Gaskell. I love all her books but especially North and South and Wives and Daughters (Cranford is great fun, too). I’ve heard of Story of an African Farm before, and I really want to give it a try, and Three Men in a Boat sound great. Thanks so much for the list, and I hope you enjoy the challenge.
Glad to be of help with your 2011 reading plans Virginia! Enjoy!
Yay, a book list! And such a great btheme, too 🙂 I really haven’t read a lot of those (one or two I think) but I’ve got most of them on the tbr. I find that Victorian fiction is also great winter reading!
There is something about very thick books, full of characters and long sentences, that fits the short winter days so well. Glad you like the list!
I signed up for this challenge, too! I can’t wait for 2011 to start already so I can get to my list!!
With books like these to look forward to, it should be a great year!
I hadn’t heard of this challenge, but I’m intrigued. And enjoyed your list…kudos to anyone who includes “Three Men in a Boat”. That book cannot be read enough!
Happy to have intrigued you Kate! Three Men in a Boat is a book that I’ve been wanting to read for years so hopefully 2011 will actually see that happen!
I am in a book group – The Jane Austen Tea Society – that meets once a quarter here in Nashville to discuss our current read over high tea at a local tearoom. We read through the Jane Austen books in the order that they were published and are now reading through select British Victorian authors in the order of birth. It’s been so interesting to see how writing styles, thought processes and society is changing as we read through the books. It was such a remarkable time in literature!
What a great group to belong to! Yes, the evolution of the novel during the 19th Century was rather impressive and reading through the century in chronological order sounds like such fun!
I grew up reading a lot of Victorian novels in my teenage years too. Then I left it to go to some contemporary fiction. Now I’m desperate to go back – hence the challenge! Why not chuck in a bit of Hardy? He likes to play around with those Victorian codes.
I’ve read four Hardy novels and not particularly enjoyed any of them so I think I’ll give him a miss for this challenge.
I just finished N&S. I don’t think I’ve loved a Victorian novel so much. I’m debating reading another Gaskell. Maybe Wives and Daughters? I don’t want a whole lot of “he said”/”she said”.. That’s why I can’t get into Jane Austen.
Any suggestions?
I adore Wives & Daughters, so that would definitely be my suggestion! Honestly, I’ve never read a lot of Victorian lit so I’m not the best person to make recommendations. Thackeray is fun and everything I’ve heard of Trollope has been positive, so maybe try them?
Interesting list – I thought I was well versed in Victorian lit but some of these I’ve never heard of. Will have to investigate them further. I’m a newcomer to Gaskell – read Cranford a couple of months ago and wondered what all the fuss is about but I was advised by her fan club members to try North and South so have started on that.
I finished Wives and Daughters a few days ago, and I read it because I saw it here, at your blog. I loved it too. I could not stop reading it. The end was a bit of a shock, but I came to terms with it, the extension of the novel comforted me, though.
I have Three Men in a Boat on my nightstand, I read a few pages and I liked it but I quit… I have only read one Dickens, Great Expectations, and I enjoyed it. But my second attempt, the Pickwick Papers, was a failure… I could not connect or understand much, and I even read 80 pages or so. Anyway, I think I will choose some other books from this nice list. And one book that keeps popping in other books I read, is Aurora Leigh, by Browning.
I had a few great months some time ago, and after Wives and Daughters, I have plateaued (?) somehow, I read two novels by Kazhuo Ishiguro, Reminds of the Day and Never Let Me Go, Life and Death in Shanghai, The Von Trapp memories by her, Mary Von Trapp, my first two Agatha Christies, Wives and Daughters, some other very pleasing non fiction in the middle, and I feel a bit at lost. Maybe it is time for Vanity Fair, or Kings Solomon’s Mines…