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Tags: 19th century english literature

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  Middlemarch

  by George Eliot

  Vast and crowded, rich in irony and suspense, Middlemarch is richer still in character, with two of the era's most enduring characters, Dorothea Brooke, trapped in a loveless marriage, and Lydgate, an ambitious young doctor.
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  Pride and Prejudice

  by Jane Austen

  The proud and wealthy Mr. Darcy and spirited Elizabeth Bennet dislike each other at first sight. While Elizabeth's mother schemes for suitable husbands for her five daughters, his pride and her prejudice just might keep them apart.
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  Great Expectations

  by Charles Dickens

  Great Expectations, described by G. K. Chesterton as a “study in human weakness and the slow human surrender,” may be called Charles Dickens' finest moment in a remarkably illustrious literary career. Written in the last decade of his life, Great Expectations reveals Dickens’ dark attitudes toward Victorian society, its inherent class structure and its materialism. Yet this novel persists as one of Dickens’ most... (more)
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  Northanger Abbey

  by Jane Austen

  In many respects, Northanger Abbey is the most lighthearted of Jane Austen's novels, yet at its core is a serious, unsentimental commentary on love and marriage.Jane Austen’s first novel, Northanger Abbey—published posthumously in 1818—tells the story of Catherine Morland and her dangerously sweet nature, innocence, and sometime self-delusion. Though Austen’s fallible heroine is repeatedly drawn into... (more)
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  Mansfield Park

  by Jane Austen

  Adultery is not a typical Jane Austen theme, but when it disturbs the relatively peaceful household at Mansfield Park, it has quite unexpected results. The diffident and much put-upon heroine Fanny Price has to struggle to cope with the results, re-examining her own feelings while enduring the cheerful amorality, old-fashioned indifference and priggish disapproval of those around her.
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  Canon of Sherlock Holmes: Book 5

  The Hound of the Baskervilles

  by Arthur Conan Doyle

  What's the real truth behind the legend of the hound of the Baskervilles? Is it really a devil-beast with crushing teeth and supernatural strength that's haunting the lonely moors? And also understand the human plot behind the hound of the Baskervilles...
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  Martin Chuzzlewit

  by Charles Dickens

  Chronicles Martin Chuzzlewit's experiences as a student of architecture and a pioneer in the American West.
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  Canon of Sherlock Holmes: Book 1

  A Study in Scarlet

  by Arthur Conan Doyle

  A Study in Scarlet brings Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson together for the first time, creating one of the most illustrious crime-solving partnerships of all times.
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  Canon of Sherlock Holmes: Book 2

  The Sign of Four

  by Arthur Conan Doyle

  As a dense yellow fog swirls through the streets of London, a deep melancholy has descended on Sherlock Holmes, who sits in a cocaine-induced haze at 221B Baker Street. His mood is only lifted by a visit from a beautiful but distressed young woman - Mary Morstan, whose father vanished ten years before. Four years later she began to receive an exquisite gift every year: a large, lustrous pearl. Now she has had an... (more)
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  The Mysteries of Udolpho

  by Ann Radcliffe

  With The Mysteries of Udolpho , Ann Radcliffe raised the Gothic romance to a new level and inspired a long line of imitators. Portraying her heroine's inner life, creating a thick atmosphere of fear, and providing a gripping plot that continues to thrill readers today, The Mysteries of Udolpho is the story of orphan Emily St. Aubert, who finds herself separated from the man she loves and confined within the... (more)
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  Canon of Sherlock Holmes: Book 7

  The Valley of Fear

  by Arthur Conan Doyle

  "You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty? The greatest schemer of all time, the organizer of every deviltry, the controlling brain of the underworld, a brain which might have made or marred the destiny of nations -- That's genius, Watson. But if I am spared by lesser men, our day will surely come." Sherlock Holmes is the one true pastmaster of the modern mystery; if you haven't read Doyle's tales of Sherlock... (more)
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  Emma

  by Jane Austen

  This Jane Austen novel begins with twenty-one-year-old Emma Woodhouse comfortably dominating the social order in the village of Highbury, convinced that she has both the understanding and the right to manage other people’s lives — for their own good, of course. Her well-meant interfering centers on the aloof Jane Fairfax, the dangerously attractive Frank Churchill, the foolish if appealing Harriet Smith and the... (more)
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  Penguin English Library: Book 41

  Hard Times

  For These Times

  by Charles Dickens

  Written deliberately to increase the circulation of Dickens' weekly magazine Household Words, Hard Times was a huge and instantaneous success upon publication in 1854. Yet this novel is not the cheerful celebration of Victorian life one might have expected from the beloved author of Pickwick Papers and The Old Curiosity Shop. Compressed, stark, allegorical, it is a bitter expose of capitalist exploitation during... (more)
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  Sense and Sensibility

  by Jane Austen

  'Young women who have no economic or political power must attend to the serious business of contriving material security.' Jane Austen's sardonic humour lays bare the stratagems, the hypocrisy and the poignancy inherent in the struggle of two very different sisters to achieve respectability. "Sense and Sensibility" is a delightful comedy of manners in which the sisters Elinor and Marianne represent these two... (more)
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  Persuasion

  by Jane Austen

  Anne Elliot is living under the spectre of regret. Many years ago, she was convinced to break off an engagement to a penniless Mr. Frederick Wentworth. Now, he has returned as the rich and successful Captain Wentworth, hero of the Napoleonic War. How will Anne bear seeing him be the admirer of a young and beautiful relative? Will her quiet and shy nature deny her a second chance at love?
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  Wuthering Heights

  by Emily Brontë

  There are few more convincing, less sentimental accounts of love than Wuthering Heights. This is the story of a tormented foundling who falls in love with the daughter of his benefactor, and of the violence and misery that result from their thwarted longing for each other.
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  Jane Eyre

  by Charlotte Brontë

  Orphaned Jane Eyre grows up in the home of her heartless aunt and later attends a charity school with a harsh regime, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds a position as governess at Thornfield Hall. However, when she finds love with her sardonic employer, Rochester, the discovery of his terrible secret... (more)
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  Oliver Twist

  or, The Parish Boy's Progress

  by Charles Dickens

  An orphan living on the dangerous London streets, Oliver has no one but himself to rely on. Fleeing from poverty and hardship, he falls in with a criminal street gang who will not let him go, however hard he tries to escape. The capital's underworld — replete with prostitutes, thieves and lost and homeless children — are displayed in this realistic and gritty look at the disadvantaged and abused.
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  Vanity Fair

  by William Makepeace Thackeray

  "Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero is a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray that satirizes society in early 19th-century England. The term "vanity fair" originates from the allegorical story The Pilgrim's Progress, published in 1678 by John Bunyan where there is a town fair held in a village called Vanity. The novel has inspired several film adaptations. The story opens at Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young... (more)
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  David Copperfield

  by Charles Dickens

  David Copperfield is the story of a young man’s adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist. Among the gloriously vivid cast of characters he encounters are his tyrannical stepfather, Mr. Murdstone; his formidable aunt, Betsey Trotwood; the eternally humble yet treacherous Uriah Heep; frivolous, enchanting Dora; and the... (more)