Books shelved under “19Th Century”

My mad love affair with the work of Thomas Hardy deepens and continues with The Woodlanders, the latest of his novels to grace my shelves. I found this well-preserved Penguin Classics paperback in a used book shop in Edinburgh for £2. I bought it (and a few other books) more so I could say I bought some books from a used bookstore in Scotland than for any other reason. But Hardy is one of…

Some stories are so popular they have permeated culture to the point where almost everyone knows them, even if they haven’t so much as glanced at the source material. Such is the case with A Christmas Carol, which has inspired numerous adaptations in every medium imaginable. As a result, Ebeneezer Scrooge is a household name, and the basic plot of A Christmas Carol is a familiar one. The source material, however, is well worth…

I’m sharing an AS Level (sixth form) literature class this year, and the other teacher wanted to use Jane Eyre as the core prose text. (This whole teaching professionally thing is also why I haven’t reviewed much lately! Working on it!) So I’m re-reading this after several years—and it has been several years too many! My opinion of Jane Eyre has improved—and it was pretty high to begin with. While I’m not quite ready to…

Thomas Hardy knows where it’s at. Tess of the d’Urbervilles is not only one of the best books I’ve read this year but one of the best books I’ve ever read. My previous outings with Hardy convinced me of his skill as a writer; this book cements him as truly deserving classic status. Hardy is one of those writers whose pointed social commentary dovetails precisely with his plot and characterization. He doesn’t have to sacrifice…

Second review: October 2019

It has been many a year since I first read Bleak House! So much has happened. I moved, then came back, from the very country whence Dickens hails. I bought a house, which I still have. I did not get involved in protracted Chancery suits.

For the past year I've had The Pickwick Papers on my shelf, and I keep picking it up and then putting it down after a…

(Psst, hey, you. Yeah, you, reading this review. I re-read this in January 2018. The below review still stands, but you might want to check out my new thoughts too! OK, that’s it. Back to reading this review.)

It has been over two years since I read Middlemarch, a novel that propelled George Eliot to near the top of my list of favourite authors. With a keen wit and a deft pen, Eliot…

This is not my first time to the Mark Twain rodeo, but it has been a long time since I last visited. Twain is not high on my list of priorities, sorry to say. However, this lovely edition of The Prince and the Pauper found its way into my possession, so I decided to challenge those priorities. While I don’t think I will be rushing to devour the rest of Twain’s oeuvre just yet, this…

This past Saturday I was Skyping with my friend Vivike, and I mentioned I had just finished Persuasion. Together, we pondered why Pride & Prejudice is the most popular of Jane Austen's work, despite the fact that some of her later efforts, such as Emma and, yes, Persuasion, are manifestly superior. We put on our literary snob hats and monocles and lamented the popular interpretation of Pride & Prejudice as a romance in…

I've talked smack about Jane Austen before, not so much to discount her ability as a writer—if you question that, then oh, we will throw down—but to compare her unfavourably to George Eliot. What can I say? I was young and stupid two years ago!

Today I would like to apologize to Miss Austen. Since Middlemarch I've come a long way and read a lot more of Austen's works, and while Eliot's novel remains uneclipsed…

Move over, Pride and Prejudice. Emma is my new favourite Jane Austen novel, and while Austen may be better known for Pride and Prejudice, this book is what has earned her acclaim in my eyes. At times plodding and predictable, Emma nonetheless won me over with a complex cast of characters, whose changing relationships are the key to the entire story. Austen's ironic hand makes this book a light but real commentary on…

I am more and more impressed with H.G. Wells. This is the third book of his I've read, and it's by far the best. The first two were The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, arguably better known than The Island of Dr. Moreau but not, in my opinion, better works of fiction.

As with those other two books, The Island of Dr. Moreau features a first-person erudite British male narrator. Much…

Maybe it's unfair to compare them, but having read this hot on the heels of The War of the Worlds, I liked The Time Machine better. On thematic grounds it's a close battle, but The Time Machine is a far superior story, hands down.

I'm not even going to touch the whole "time travel" concept as Wells presents it in this book, both because it was written in 1895 and because science fiction has…

It's easy to be a jaded reader of science fiction, especially if you grew up with the conveniences of Star Trek, Star Wars, and the reality of spaceflight. So it's important to remember that writers like H.G. Wells never got to see the famous Blue Marble photograph of Earth; they never got to see what our planet looks like from space—something most of us take for granted in this era. This awareness, our…

Foremost in my mind while reading Sense and Sensibility was how much both society and the English language have changed in the nearly 200 years since this book's publication. Conduct that we would now find unremarkable, perhaps even laudable, earns Jane Austen's characters harsh opprobrium. All of the book's conflict stems from the tangled web of relationships influenced by the mores of early nineteenth century England. Readers who stubbornly persist in interpreting this book on…

NB: I reread and reviewed Jude the Obscure in 2018.

The flaw with Jude the Obscure is neither its theme nor its characters. The flaw is with the narrative, which, slowly-paced, is only lengthened by the vacillation of Hardy's characters.

At first, I empathized with young Jude Fawley. An intellectual at heart, even as a child, he dedicates himself to becoming an autodidact and strives to gain admittance to the university. His plans hit a…

This book blew me away. Forget Jane Austen or any of the Brontë sisters. I found Pride and Prejudice tolerable and liked Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, but they are nothing compared to the scope and genius of Middlemarch. George Eliot has given Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens a run for their money, and I think Middlemarch has won the title of My Favourite Victorian Novel. (Editor's note: Since writing this…

It was difficult to get into this book for the first few chapters. The story properly begins in Chapter IV, where Mrs. Dean begins her tale of the doomed love between the inhabitants of Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights. Prior to that, Mr. Lockwood's introduction to Heathcliff and his associates seems like a prologue, and a poor one at that.

I persevered, however, and my opinion of Wuthering Heights steadily increased from two stars to…

A thoroughly enjoyable book. It's easy to become disenchanted with Victorian literature, mostly because that culture is so far removed from our own. Jane Eyre is more refined than Pride and Prejudice (which I found only tolerable). Fortunately, Charlotte Brontë is a superior writer to Jane Austen, and Jane Eyre is a great novel in its own right.

The eponymous heroine is likable. She tends toward the melodramatic when speaking of her struggles, and at…

As with most romances and much Victorian fiction, I felt a considerable burden lifted from me after I finished Two on a Tower. Yet I can't help but feel regret that it's over so quickly. Although not my favourite genre, Thomas Hardy is skilled enough to draw me into the lives of these two people and make me sympathize with their plight.

Even as I struggled with my distaste for the idiosyncrasies of Victorian…