Topic
Victorian Fiction
8 reading guides and book lists curated by the Editors Reads team.
8 posts
Best Victorian Novels: Essential 19th-Century British Fiction
The best Victorian novels — from Middlemarch and Jane Eyre to Great Expectations and Wuthering Heights. Essential 19th-century British fiction for modern readers.
Where to Start with A.S. Byatt: A Reading Guide
Where to start with A.S. Byatt — whether to begin with Possession or The Children's Book. A complete reading guide to the Booker Prize-winning British novelist.
Where to Start with Charles Dickens: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Charles Dickens — whether to begin with Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, or David Copperfield. Complete reading guide.
Where to Start with George Eliot: A Reading Guide
Where to start with George Eliot — whether to begin with Middlemarch, Silas Marner, The Mill on the Floss, or Daniel Deronda. A complete reading guide.
Where to Start with Oscar Wilde: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Oscar Wilde — whether to begin with The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, or An Ideal Husband. A complete reading guide.
Where to Start with Thomas Hardy: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Thomas Hardy — whether to begin with Far From the Madding Crowd, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, or The Mayor of Casterbridge. A complete reading guide.
Books Like Great Expectations: Class, Self-Invention, and the Education of Pip
Dickens's Pip — raised by his sister, mentored by a convict, in love with the cold Estella, and ashamed of where he came from — is the great portrait of aspiration and its costs. These books share his journey from obscurity toward a 'gentleman,' and what it takes from them.
Books Like Middlemarch: Provincial Life, Moral Ambition, and the Web of Society
George Eliot's study of Dorothea Brooke's thwarted idealism — and of half a dozen other lives in the provincial town of Middlemarch — is the greatest Victorian novel and possibly the greatest English novel. These books share its scope, its moral intelligence, and its compassion.
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