When William Harrison Ainsworth wrote Rookwood, he was struggling against a recent bankruptcy of the business he shared with his father-in-law. Returning to the practice of law in 1830 and anticipating the birth of his third daughter, according to biographer… Read More ›
victorian melodrama
Analysis of William Makepeace Thackeray’s The Newcomes
William Makepeace Thackeray issued in 24 installments what would become his most popular novel, first published between October 1853 and August 1855. In The Newcomes, Thackeray offered an uncomplimentary view of Victorian ideas of respectable marriages; hence, the meaningful subtitle… Read More ›
Analysis of G. A. Lawrence’s Guy Livingstone
G. A. Lawrence’s Guy Livingstone represents a briefly popular trend toward “manly” fiction. Its protagonist, as full of life and as hard as his surname suggests, embodies the masculine idea of strength unmitigated by any subtlety, particularly not in the… Read More ›
Analysis of Ellen Wood’s East Lynne
East Lynne represents prototypical 19th-century sensation fiction, extremely popular with English readers. The novel was the second for Mrs. Henry (Ellen Price) Wood, who had begun publishing highly moralistic fiction at the age of 41. It became an immediate hit… Read More ›
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