Charles Kingsley had already contributed to children’s literature when he published his fantasy The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby, first read as a serial in Macmillan’s Magazine between 1862 and 1863. His juvenile novel The Heroes had… Read More ›
Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles, originally subtitled A Pure Woman, is about Tess d’Urberville’s tragic dilemma between her seducer, Alec, and her named husband, Angel, both of whom intrude into her life. In epic form, Hardy describes Tess’s… Read More ›
First published as a serial in Macmillan’s Magazine between May and December 1870, Anthony Trollope’s Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite differs from much of his fiction. Rather than constructing a large number of “portraits” as he normally did, Trollope sought… Read More ›
Generations of readers continue to enjoy the appealing story of an old miser who regains his humanity through the love of a lost child in George Eliot’s Silas Marner. In typical Eliot fashion, the novel reveals the tensions in a… Read More ›
George Meredith’s fourth novel, Rhoda Fleming, dealt with a familiar theme: the pressure society places on both genders—but especially women—to conform to unrealistic expectations. That his culture governed love relationships with laws, such as those relating to marriage and divorce,… Read More ›
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 ›
Serialized between January 1864 and August 1865, Anthony Trollope’s first in his Palliser series, Can You Forgive Her? proved instantly popular. Based on reworked material from his failed comedy The Noble Jilt, its plot focuses on Victorian discontent with social… Read More ›
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