Topic
19th Century
20 reading guides and book lists curated by the Editors Reads team.
20 posts
Where to Start with Anne Brontë: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Anne Brontë — how to approach The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, her essential and most radical novel. A complete reading guide to the youngest Brontë sister.
Where to Start with Emily Brontë: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Emily Brontë — how to approach Wuthering Heights, her essential and only novel. A complete reading guide to the Victorian author.
Where to Start with Fyodor Dostoevsky: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Fyodor Dostoevsky — whether to begin with Crime and Punishment or The Brothers Karamazov, and how to approach his major works. A complete reading guide.
Where to Start with H.G. Wells: A Reading Guide
Where to start with H.G. Wells — how to approach The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, and his other scientific romances. A complete reading guide to the father of science fiction.
Where to Start with Leo Tolstoy: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Leo Tolstoy — whether to begin with Anna Karenina, War and Peace, or The Death of Ivan Ilyich. A complete reading guide for the essential Russian novelist.
Best American Novels: The Great American Novel Reading List
The best American novels — from Moby-Dick and The Great Gatsby to Beloved and Blood Meridian. The essential canon of American fiction from the 19th century to today.
Best Classic Novels About Women: The Essential Reading List
The best classic novels about women — from Middlemarch to Anna Karenina, Jane Eyre, Madame Bovary, and The House of Mirth. Novels that defined female experience in literature.
Best French Literature: Essential Novels from France
The best French literature — from Madame Bovary and Germinal to The Stranger and Swann's Way. Essential novels and the canonical reading list for French fiction.
Charles Dickens Books in Order: Complete Bibliography & Best Starting Points
Charles Dickens's complete bibliography in order — from The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist to Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities. Best starting points and why Dickens still matters.
Edith Wharton Books in Order: Complete Bibliography & Best Starting Points
Edith Wharton's complete bibliography in order — from The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence to The Custom of the Country. Best starting points and reading order for new readers.
Émile Zola Books in Order: Complete Bibliography & Best Starting Points
Émile Zola's complete bibliography in order — from Germinal and Nana to L'Assommoir. Best starting points and reading order for the Rougon-Macquart series.
George Eliot Books in Order: Complete Bibliography & Best Starting Points
George Eliot's complete bibliography in order — from The Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner to Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda. Best starting points and why Middlemarch is considered the greatest English novel.
Gustave Flaubert Books in Order: Complete Bibliography & Best Starting Points
Gustave Flaubert's complete bibliography in order — from Madame Bovary and Sentimental Education to Three Tales and Salammbô. Best starting points for new readers.
Honoré de Balzac Books in Order: Complete Bibliography & Best Starting Points
Honoré de Balzac's complete bibliography in order — from Père Goriot and Cousin Bette to Lost Illusions. Best starting points and reading order for the Comédie Humaine.
Mark Twain Books in Order: Complete Bibliography & Best Starting Points
Mark Twain's complete bibliography in order — from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to Life on the Mississippi. The best starting points and his lasting importance.
Stendhal Books in Order: Complete Bibliography & Best Starting Points
Stendhal's complete bibliography in order — from The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma to his diaries and treatises. Best starting points for new readers.
Where to Start with Stendhal: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Stendhal — whether to begin with The Red and the Black or The Charterhouse of Parma. A complete reading guide to the French novelist's best work.
Willa Cather Books in Order: Complete Bibliography & Best Starting Points
Willa Cather's complete bibliography in order — from My Ántonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop to O Pioneers! Best starting points for new readers.
Where to Start with Nikolai Gogol: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Nikolai Gogol — how to approach Dead Souls, the great comic novel of Russian literature following Chichikov's scheme to buy dead serfs as collateral through a gallery of provincial landowners who are each unforgettable. A complete reading guide.
Where to Start with Ivan Turgenev: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Ivan Turgenev — how to approach Fathers and Sons, his landmark 1862 novel introducing Bazarov the nihilist and capturing the conflict between Russia's romantic liberal generation and the radical scientific youth that would supplant them. A complete reading guide.
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