VICTORIAN ERA

(1837-1901)

• Victorian era refers to the period during the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901.
• One of the longest reign in the history of England.
• This age is also referred as ‘Second English Renaissance’ for its prosperity and development
in every field.
• This period is characterised by energy and high moral purpose.
• It was a time of change with London becoming most important city in the Europe and drastic
impact on society with industrialisation, imperialism, Utilitarianism, etc.
• Victorian era marked it’s uniqueness for its Victorian Temper which exemplifies certain
Victorian qualities like earnestness, moral responsibility, domestic propriety.

Major events of the period

❖ The Early Victorian Period (1830-1848)

• The first public railway line in the world was opened between the Liverpool and Manchester
in 1830, which paved the way to the development of England’s landscape, commerce and
reduced the distance between cities.
• The Reform Bill of 1832 transformed the English society altogether, especially, the class
structure. It extended the right to vote to all males owning property and is again extended to
the working class in the Second Reform Bill of 1867.
• During the period of 1830s and 1840s England faced a lot problems like unemployment,
poverty, rioting, formation of slums in large cities and the terrible working condition of
women and children.
❖ The Mid-Victorian Period (1848-1870)
• The period from 1848 to 1870 was a period of prosperity, improvement, stability and
optimism.
• The Great Exhibition of 1851 in Crystal Palace marked the beginning of a new era of modern
industry and science.
• This period also marked the expansion of British Empire where they took it as their moral
responsibility and religious obligation to spread Christianity in its colonies.
• This was also a period of high religious debates through Evangelical Movement, Oxford
Movement, etc.
• Jeremy Bentham’s idea of Utilitarianism ruled the period which formulated the idea of “the
greatest good for the greatest number”.
• Charles Darwin's Origin of Species and the Descent of Man brought a revolutionary thoughts
questioning religion.
❖ The Late Victorian Period (1870-1901)
• It marked the breakdown of Victorian values.
• It resulted in the development of Aesthetic movement and Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
• This was a period of scepticism and doubt.
• Literacy, Publication and Reading
• Compulsory education was implemented resulting in getting half of the population literate.
• Advancement in printing technology resulted in the production of text in mass.
• Growth of periodicals where number of novels where published in serial form.
• The literature illuminated social problems.
• All these factors resulted in an increased reading public in the Victorian era.
 • Victorian trends:
• Realism: It is the portrayal of reality in its accurate form. Literature from Victorian period
reflected the daily life of English society unlike the idealism of previous generation.
• Victorian compromise : It was a combination of the positive aspects like technology,
development and communication clubbed with the negative aspects like poverty, injustice,
slums, etc.
• Agnosticism : It states God’s existence is neither observable nor provable which drove the
society into a state of uncertainty. The literature expressed the scepticism of society.

VICTORIAN NOVELS

• Victorian era was primarily an age of novels or fictions.

• This era witnessed a significant shift in reading public interest.
• In the Romantic era the readers were mostly elite and they predominantly
preferred poetry.
• But in the Victorian era there is a shift to novels which was produced in mass
and got higher readership.
• But then novels were considered primarily a middle class form of literary art.
• The reasons for the popularity of novels were:
➢ Increase in the reading public who were mostly middle class who rose in power.
➢ Low cost of printing and advancement in technology resulted in mass
production of literature.
➢ The rise of lending libraries.
➢ Increase in the literacy rate due to the New Education policy.
➢ Most of the novels dealt with the real contemporary life so that people could
relate it with their day to day life.
Features:
• Novels were the best way to canvas the real picture of the society. Some writers used
novels as a mirror to reflect the society as such, some to project the prosperity and
there were some who scorned, criticised and denounced the evils of society.
• Experimentation with wide variety of narratives.
• In the initial stages novels were serialised in periodicals and were published in
instalments at regular intervals.
• Long and complicated plots with sub plots. Along with the major characters the
author focused on the secondaries.
• The usual setting of the novels were cities which is a result of industrialism.
• Narrator is omniscient who comments and judges on the plot and provide retribution
and punishment.
• Characterisation was important during this novels. Precise and deep analysis of the
their lives.
• Novels most of the times followed a linearity with a beginning, middle and end.
• Bildungsroman was a popular genre during this period.
Women writers:
• Although Victorian era was a period of progress and prosperity, the position of
woman during the period was under question.
• Women were the subjects of moral subjection. It was a time when people drowned at
women who rode bicycle in the public.
• But at the same time, this was a period were majority of the novel buyers and readers
were women.
• Moreover, this era also saw an upsurge women's writing.
• But it was not easy for the women writers to survive the Victorian conventions. So
they used strategies to publish their work.
• The first thing they used was to adopt a Male pseudonym. This is what feminist
literary scholars of 20th century called as “metaphorical trousers" .
• Examples
❖ Charlotte Bronte – Currer Bell
❖ Anne Bronte – Acton Bell
❖ Emily Bronte – Ellis Bell
❖ Mary Ann Evans – George Elliot
• Other writers used husband's and brother's name. For example, Margaret Oliphant
used Mrs. Oliphant, Elizabeth Gaskell in Mrs. Gaskell, Ellen Wood in Mrs. Henry Wood
and Mary Augusta Ward in Mrs. Humphry Ward.
• These female writers were all remarkably professional and dominate over the men
writers as well.
Novels of Victorian era can be categorised into two generations:
• First generation novels/ novelists:
• This was a time when there was an upsurge in novel production with increased
reading public.
• The writers of the period were primarily realist. They wrote the life of contemporary
England. They were the spokesmen of the age whose work identified with the
changes in the society.
• Novels of the period is also known as social problem novels which discussed the
impact of industrialisation and utilitarianism.
• The writers of the age were concerned about the mass poverty and accumulation of
wealth in few hands. But at the same time they believed that these were all temporary
and in no time England will become a prosperous nation in the whole world.
• The attitude of writers were of sometimes humanist, satirist or moralist.
• The novels were considered truly national as they compromised with the systems and
propagated the idea of respectability.
• “Honesty is the best policy” and “Nothing for nothing" were the major dictums
during this period.
• Characters were foregrounded than the plot. Writers were keen to present an in
depth analysis of the inner life and psychology of the characters.
• Loose plot is another peculiarity during this period. The works lacked a regular form
and artistic value. Their prior intention is to satisfy the readers by presenting their
own lives before them as such.
• Novels were serialised in periodicals and magazines which resulted in the increased
readership of the novels.
• The major writers during this period were Charles Dickens, William Thackeray and
Brontë Sisters, Elizabeth Gaskell.
• Second generation novels or novelists:
• The writers who published their work in the second half of the nineteenth century.
• They were less popular then the preceding generation.
• The novels of the period were more artistic and literary.
• Rather than being an entertainment, their main focus was on being a critic of the
society.
• Most of them were of pessimistic as they believed that the rural and the agrarian of
England was under greater threat.
• A shift in focus from the middle class to the rural life can be seen in the novels of this
time.
• They focussed on the Darwinian theory and its principles of “struggle for existence”
and “survival of the fittest”.
• Most of the writers of the time were highly educated and the novels were intellectual.
• Novelist of the period were George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, George Meredith, etc.

CHARLES DICKENS:
• One of the greatest novelist from Victorian era.
• Full name – Charles John Huffam Dickens.
• He was born on February 7,1812 in Portsmouth
• Father- John Dickens and mother – Elizabeth Dickens
• Charles moved with his family to Chatham, East London and stayed there until 11.
• Christopher Huffam was his Godfather.
• He lacked formal education as his family was in debt.
• The father of Charles was sent to debt prison, and he was forced to drop his school.
• He worked in a factory.
• He wandered through the streets and observed the street life. This experiences
affected him deeply and influenced many of his work.
• Later their financial crisis ended and had resumed his education till the age of 15.
• He worked as reporter in court and parliament
• He was the editor of the magazine Bentley Miscellany.
• Maria Beadnell was his first love who was the daughter of the editor of the daily he
worked.
• He started writing short stories at an early age.
• A Dinner at Popular Walk was the first short story which was published in Monthly
Magazine.
• He wrote his stories under the pen name Boz (his brother’s name)
• His stories became popular among the public and it was reprinted in his first book
Sketches by Boz (1836).
• At the age of 25, his first novel Pickwick Papers was published. It was a serialised
novel. Later on, he published many novels in the same manner.
• He was considered as the pioneer of serialised fiction.
• Pickwick Paper brought fame for him and he began recognised by the society.
• Catherine Hogarth was his wife. He was not having happy marriage with her.
• He contributed journals to “The Mirror of Parliament” and “The True Sun”.
• He was interested in paranormal. He was a member of the Ghost Club.
• He had a pet raven named Grip.
• He died on 9 June, 1870 at Gads Hill Palace due to heart stroke.
• He was working on his unfinished novel Edwin Drood.
• He was buried in the Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey against his wish to be laid in
Rochester Cathedral.
• Features of his writing:
• Dickens gave utmost importance to the title of his work. He was very keen in giving
the most apt title which encompass the whole essence of the novel.
• He used his novel as a mirror of the contemporary society and acted as a social
reformer attacking the evils. That is why his novels where known as social problem
novels.
• His novels are unique in its linguistic usage with a wide range of rich vocabulary.
Moreover, he used powerful adjectives, metaphors and similes heighten the mood of
the situation.
• Dickens was a real craftsman in creating multiple characters and situations.
• He was the first writer during that period to write from the point of view of the poor.
• Feminine characters of Charles Dickens were feeble and the children portrayed the
innocence that are corrupted by adults.
• Suspense and mystery is another aspect that led to the popularity of Dickens’ novels.
He used suspense at the end or introduced sensational events.
• Most of his novels were told from a negative circumstances but ends in happiness.
• Major themes: Dickens novels can withstand any time frame because of the social
relevence of the themes he dealt with. They are:
❖ Poverty or role of money
❖ Child labour
❖ Education system
❖ Misery of the lower middle class
❖ Industrialism
❖ Utilitarianism
❖ Bildungsroman, etc.
• Dickensian: According to Oxford English Dictionary, Dickensian is a term that is
“of or reminiscent of the novels of c Charles Dickens, especially in suggesting the
poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters that they portray”.
• This is a term used to refer to something that comes in the works of Charles Dickens.
• WORKS:

Pickwick Papers

• It is also known as The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.

• It was published by Chapman and Hall from March 1836 to Nov 1837.
 • This was primarily planned as a description for the illustrations of Robert
Seymour.
• But its popularity flourished and Dickens came to be known by it.
• After the death of Seymour after few months, Hablot Knight Browne, also known
as Phiz became his official illustrator.
• It was a picaresque novel.
• PLOT: The protagonist of the story was an old gentleman who was the founder of
the Pickwick Club.
• He along with his three friends (pickwickians) travel to remote places to observe
the lives and to report them to the members of the club.
• This novel rose to popularity in the 10th chapter with the introduction of Sam
Weller, who was Pickwick’s servant and entertained readers with his Cockney
wisdom.
• Major characters:
❖ Nathaniel Winkle, who considered himself as a sportsman but never tried
horse or gun. He is one of the Pickwickians.
❖ Augustus Snodgrass, another Pickwickian who calls himself a poet but
never seen him reading his poetry.
❖ Tracy Trupman who was a romantic lover and a Pickwickian.
❖ Sam Weller, the affectionate servant of Mr. Pickwick who later became his
closest friend.
❖ Mr. Wardle, a hospitable squire, who is fond of the Pickwickians.
• Theme: The main theme of the novel is the joy of travel and companionship which is
placed against the odds of society by giving a special emphasis on the politics, love
and marriage and the suffering of the poor.

Oliver Twist:

• The alternative title of the novels is The Parish Boy’s Progress. This is alluded from
Bunyan’s The Pilgrims Progress.
• Oliver Twist was the second novel of Charles Dickens which tells the story of the
titular character who was a young orphan.
• He began the novel even before the Pickwick Paper finished. It was serialised from
1837 to 1839 in Bentley’s Miscellany, and converted into a three volume book in
1838.
• The novel deals with the impoverished streets and its life and how they lead to crime.
• Plot:
• Oliver an orphan was born in a workhouse.
• Ill-treatment by Mrs Corney and Mrs Mann at workhouse.
• He was sold to Sowerberry, the undertaker who makes him work
• Oliver flees to London street to find fortune
• Artful Dodger takes him in and was send to an old man Fagin who teaches him
pickpocketing.
• Oliver was caught and released by Mr. Brownlow who treats him with sympathy.
 • Fagin had him abducted with the help of Bill Sykes and Nancy.
• Send for a burglary and Oliver was shot.
• Mrs Maylie and het niece Rose take care of him.
• Bill Sykes was killed and Fagin was arrested.
• Brownlow takes the custody of Oliver and inherited his father’s property.
• The novel ends happily.
• In nutshell, this is a story of innocent boy who comes against the evils of society.
• This novel gives a detailed description of the criminal lives in the London street which
is put in odd against the so called Victorian sophistication.
• Dickens ‘experience as a boy in the streets of London contributed to the novel.
• The reports and stories on Robert Blinwe, a young boy who was forced to child
labour can be the inspiration for Dickens to write the novel.
• Themes:
• Good vs evil
• Criminality in the streets of cities.
• Child exploitation- child labour/ pick pocketing
• Individualism
• City vs countryside
• Exploitation in the form of charity. ( workhouses)
• Major Characters:
• Oliver Twist – The protagonist of the novel whose mother died giving him birth and
forced to live in a workhouse and had to face the evils of society.
• Mrs. Mann – The lady who runs the workhouse for orphans and ill-treats its
inhabitants. Oliver lived there for 9 years.
• Mr. Sowerberry – The person to whom Oliver was sold , the undertaker. Oliver works
as his apprentice.
• Fagin – The villain of the novel. An old man who engages children for pickpocketing
and exploits them for his own advantage.
• Artful Dodger – Original name Jack Dawkin. The most clever and cunning criminal
who work for Fagin.
• Mr. Brownlow – First benefactor of Oliver who shows sympathy and gentleness to
Oliver.
• Rose Maylie – Another benefactor of Oliver. Later in the novel it is revealed that Rose
is eOliver’s aunt. She represents the typical female virtue portrayed by Dickens.
• Nancy – A young prostitute who was Fagin’s pickpocketer in her childhood. She is the
lover of Bill Sykes.
• Bill Sykes – A brutal burglar and pickpocketer. He killed Nancy.
• Agnes Fleming – Oliver’s mother who dies giving him birth in the workhouse. She was
in love with Mr. Leeford.

Nicholas Nickleby
• It is also known as The Life and Adventure of Nicholas Nickleby or The Life and
Adventure of Nicholas Nickleby, Containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes,
Misfortunes, Uprising, Down fallings and Complete Career of the Nickleby Family.
• It was his third novel which was serialised from 1838 to 1839 by Chapman and Hall.
• Illustrator – Phiz( Hablot Knight Browne).
• The book was printed in 1839.
• The novel tells the story of a young man who struggles to take care of his mother and
sister after his father’s death.
• In the course of the novel Nicholas travels many places and go through many
adventures.
• His uncle Ralph is the villain of the novel who did not like Nicholas and his family.
Only cares about his money.
• Plot:
• Nicholas father dies.
• Lose money and left nothing for his family.
• Moved to London and approached Ralph Nickleby for support.
• He was cold towards them. He managed a job for Nicholas at Dotheboys Hall which
was run by Wackford Squeers.
• Nicholas befriends Smike an inmate of the school and beats Squeers bloody for
harming Smike and leaves Dotheboys’ with Smike.
• Mother and his sister Kate were miserable under Ralph’s custody. He exploits Kate for
his business advantage.
• Nicholas joins a theatre company of Vincent Crummles and leaves the company when
he came to know about Kate’s mishap.
• Ralph along with others plans to take revenge on Nicholas.
• He returns London and shelters his family safe at Miss LaCreevy’s place.
• He finds a job at Cheeryble Brothers, who supported him a lot.
• All efforts of Ralph and others go in vain.
• Smike dies and Ralph is revealed to be the father of Smike.
• Ralph regrets and ends his life.
• Themes:
• Bildungsroman novel
• Class or status.
• Broken Heart
• Exploitation.
• Major characters:
• Nicholas Nickleby : A young man who is forced to support his family after his father’s
death, who left them nothing. The story moves through the adventurous journey of
Nicholas and how he managed to escape from the scheming of his uncle Ralph and
others.
• Ralph Nickleby: An ill-spirited man who only cares for money. He stand as obstacle in
the life of Nicholas and his family, who instead of supporting makes life miserable for
them.
• Kate: Nicholas’ sister who is typical of Dickensian women. She marries Frank
Cheeryble.
• Mrs. Nickleby: Mother of Nicholas and Kate. The only comic relief in the novel. Mrs.
Nickleby can be considered as an allusion to Dickens’ own mother.
• Smike : A young boy of 18 who lived at Dotheboys Hall. He befriended Nicholas and
accompanied him. He was found to be the first cousin of Nicholas.
• Wackford Squeers : A one-eyed man who was the Head of the Dotheboys School and
mistreated the students.
• Newman Noggs – An alcoholic who works at Ralph. He was a man of good fortune
but lost everything. He was a friend of Nicholas.

Old Curiosity Shop

• The fourth novel of Dickens that is a part of tge weekly serial Master Humphrey’s
Clock.
• It is published along with Barnaby Rudge and other short stories.
• It is published from 1840 to 1841
• This is a story of a young girl Nell Trent who lives with her grandfather in an old
Curiosity shop.
• She was forced to leave the shop as her grandfather gambled with everything , losing
the shop to Daniel Quilp, the money lender.
• The novel portrays the girl’s effort to protect herself and her grandfather from the
clutches of the evil doers.
• In her effort, she was sickened and dies.
• This is one of the emotional ending Dickens ever had written.
Barnaby Rudge:
• First historical novel by Charles Dickens.
• This is a tale of riots of eighteenth century, more precisely the Gordon Riot of 1780.
• This was actually planned as his first novel, titled as Gabriel Vardon, tge Locksmith of
London.
• The major theme of the novel is the disastrous relationship between father and son
which was represented through many characters, especially of Barnaby, who was
abandoned by his father.
• In the novel, Barnaby’s pet raven Grip plays an important role.
• This is one of Dickens least popular novels.
Christmas Carol:
• The most popular work of Dickens.
• It is subtitled as In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas.
• This is a novella
• Published by Chapman and Hall and illustrated by John Leech.
• This deals with life if Ebenezer Scrooge who was a miser and hated Christmas and
how his life changed in the Christmas eve.
• It is the journey of a selfishness to redemption.
• Plot:
• The story is divided into five chapters. Each chapter is called a stave.
• Stave 1 : A Christmas eve, seven years after the death of Jacob Marley, his business
partner.
• Scrooge disliked Christmas – did not give donation.
• Rejected the invitation of his nephew Fred.
• Underpaid his clerk Bob Cratchit
• Marley’ ghost visited and warned him of the arrival of three spirits whom he should
listen carefully to get a chance of redemption
• Stave 2 : Scrooge was visited by the spirit of Christmas Past. It showed him :
• his childhood where he was lonely at a boarding school.
• His sister Fan who loved him a lot.
• Mr. Fezziwig, his boss who was more kind to him.
• His fiancée Belle whom he rejected and how she led a beautiful life after her
marriage.
• The ghost of Christmas present memory.
• Stave 3 : The spirit of Christmas Present. It showed him the joyous market in the
Christmas eve,
• Fred’s party,
• Bob Cratchit’s family feast and
• His youngest son Tiny Tim who was seriously ill.
• Two children, a boy and a girl comes from the Ghost’s robe named Ignorance and
Want respectively.
• The spirit of Christmas represent celebration and charity.
• Stave 4: Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come.
• It showed him a funeral in the future which was attended by people for the sake of
the lunch that is provided. None present there was sad for the dead person.
• Showed him a scene of tenderness where Bob Cratchit and his family mourns the
death of the Tiny Tim.
• Scrooge pledged to change.
• The spirit of Christmas Yet to Come represent death or uncertainty.
• Stave 5: Christmas morning.
• Scrooge changed altogether.
• Provided large donation.
• Visited Fred’s family
• Anonymously send a large turkey to Bob Cratchit.
• His pay increased.
• Themes:
• Redemption. Scrooge’s transformation from a selfish, miserly man to a redeemed
person.
• God’s power over evil
• Poverty, particularly child poverty.
• Attitude of rich towards poor.
• Importance of love and compassion
• Damaging effects of isolation.
Martin Chuzzlewit:
• The Life of Martin Chuzzlewit.
• Last of his Picaresque novel
• Serialised from 1842 to 1844.
• The novel deals with the selfishness amd greed of the Chuzzlewit family.
• The novel has the greatest villains of Dickens – Seth Pecksniff and Jonas Chuzzlewit.
• This novel is dedicated to Angela Georgina Burdett.
The Chime:
• The subtitle of the work is A Giblin Story of Some Bells That Rang an Old Year out
and New Year In.
• It is a novella and his second Christmas book after Christmas Carol.
• It was first published in 1844.
• The book is divided into four parts known as quarters.
• It tells the story of Toby Veck, famous as ‘Trotty’ Veck, a working class man who never
believes in Humanity and thinks that working class people are worthless. He is visited
by Goblin in a New Year’s eve which shows him visions of his own people.
• Other Christmas books:
• The Cricket on the Hearth (1845)
• The Battle of Life (1846)
• The Haunted Mannand the Ghost’s Bargain (1848)
David Copperfield:
• The original title of the novel is The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and
Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookey (Which He
Never Meant to Publish on any Account)
• This was serialised from 1849 to 1850 and as a book in 1850 by Bradley and Evans.
• This is an autobiographical novel.
• The narrator of the work is the eponymous David Copperfield.
• Dickens wrote in 1867 edition of the book, “like many fond parents I have in my heart
of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield.”
• This is a bildungsroman novel or coming of age which deals with the adventurous
journey of David Copperfield from a struggling infancy to an adulthood of social
ascent.
• Plot: David’s father died at his younger age.
• He lived with his mother and servant Clara Peggotty.
• Mother remarried Edward Murdstone when he was seven.
• David disliked him for his cold behaviour. One day Murdstone thrashed David leading
David to bite him back.
• As a result he was sent to a boarding school at Salem House headed by Mr. Creakle, a
cruel man.
• He befriended Tommy Traddles and James Steerforth.
• He visited his mother during holidays. One of his visit mother gave birth to a baby
boy and soon after reached Salem he heard the news of the death of both mother
and baby.
• Murdstone sent him to work in a London factory, from where he elopes and goes to
live with his aunt Betsy Trottwood.
• His aunt treated him with kindness. She called him Trotwood. He was sent to a better
school.
• He was lodged at Mr. Wickfield’s place where Uriah Heep also was a clerk, who led
the major fraudulency in the novel and was imprisoned.
• After his studies he was apprenticed as a proctor. Hus aunt’s wealth diminished
because of Uriah Heep.
• David struggled to make a living. He learned shorthand and with the help of Traddle
he became a parliamentry reporter.
• David started writing novels and soon became famous.
• He married Dora Spenlow who died during her delivery and later he married Agnes
and they led a happy life.
• Characters:
• David Copperfield : The narrator and the protagonist of the novel whose
development from infancy to maturity becomes the plot of the novel. He was a
trusted, goal oriented and loving person, but at the same time he was not perfect.
• Clara Copperfield : The mother of David who was innocently childish.
• Clara Peggotty : The loving and caring nanny of David who was there for him
whenever he was in need od her.
• Edward Murdstone : The antagonist in the first half of the novel who mistreated
David and as well as his mother.
• Mr and Mrs. Wilkins Micawber : An unfortunate couple who was constantly under
financial crisis.
• Betsey Trotwood : David’s aunt who has an eccentric character and acted as a second
mother to David.
• Uriah Heep : The villain in the last half of the novel who fakes to be gentle and meek
hiding his true intention to revenge the world for the humiliation he suffered.
• Agnes : True love of David who supports and calms David in all his difficulties. She
becomes his second wife.
• Other characters : James Steerforth, Little Em’ly, Dora Spenlow, Tommy Traddles,
Jane, Ham, Mrs. Grummidge, Doctor Strong, etc.
• Themes:
• Bildungsroman more specifically Kunstlerroman

“ .... Kùnstlerroman (“artist-novel”), which represents the development of a novelist

or other artist from childhood into the stage of maturity that signalizes the
recognition of the protagonist’s artistic destiny and mastery of an artistic
craft.”(P.255, A Glossary of Literary Terms)
• Differences between social classes
• Memory and Nostalgia. This novel becomes a fictional memoir by David Copperfield.
• “Will I be the hero of my own life” – The novel did not represent a heroic David who
is perfect in every manner but instead a hero in all the imperfections.
• Love and marriage.
• Autobiographical elements:
• The character of David Copperfield represents Dickens.
• Dickens’ father who was once sent to a debt prison was represented through Mr.
Micawber’s imprisonment.
• Dora Spenlow represent Maria Beadnell.
Bleak House:
• Serialised from 1852 to 1853 in 20 episodes.
• Published by Bradbury and Evans.
• The narrator of the novel is Esther Summerson who is the only female narrative of
Dickens’ novel. An omniscient narration is also seen in some parts of the novel.
• This novel is a critic against the Court of Chancery.
• The work concerns the generations of waiting for a long run legal case in the Court of
Chancery and the lives that are connected to it.
• There were number of legal cases precedent to this fictional case, Jarndyce and
Jarndyce in the novel.
• The inspiration for this was a real law suit named Thelluson v Woodford that lasted
for over 53 years.
• Apart from that the novel is about a saintly heroine with a parentage mystery, a
pressure to marry a man she respects and also deals with the unravelling of scandals
and death.
• The novel contains many subplots.
• Dickens’ mastery in irony and multiple association is represented through the
detailed description of the events in the novel.
• Gothic or macabre elements is another feature of the novel.
• The characterisation of novel is represented through light and dark imagery.
• Setting of the novel: Bleak House, Chesney Wold and Tom All-Alone’s
• Plot:
• Esther described her childhood with her aunt.
• She moved into her new guardian Mr. Jarndyce who was the resident of the Bleak
House along with Ada Clare and Richard Carstone.
• Lady and Sir Leicester Dedlock living in the gothic setting of the Chesney Wold.
• Mr. Tulkinghorn, the attorney of Leicester read the legal document of Jarndyce and
Jarndyce to Lady Dedlock
• Lady Dedlock curious of its handwriting and recognised it as her once lover Caption
Hawdon’s.
• Mr. Tulkinghorn investigated it found it to be the handwriting of a rag named Nemo (
Nemo is a symbolic name which in Latin means Nobody) who was already dead
• Nemo was actually Captain Hawdon in disguise.
• Lady Dedlock disguised as her maid Hortense found where Hawdon is buried
through Jo.
• Mr. Tulkinghorn dig out all the secret of Lady Dedlock and promise to keep it as a
secret which he no longer felt bound to it.
• Mr. Tulkinghorn betrayed Hortense who turns against him.
• He was found shot dead.
• Mr. Bucket was hired to investigate the case.
• Lady Dedlock and George Rouncewell (revealed to be the son of the Dedlocks’
housekeeper) under suspicion.
• Hortense found to be the real culprit.
• Truth about Esther’s parentage was revealed. She was the illegitimate child of Lady
Dedlock and Captain Hawdon’s affair.
• Quilt ridden Lady Dedlock found dead at the gate of paupers cemetery.
• At the Bleak House, Richard and Ada get married.
• Richard ambitious of the Jarndyce and Jarndyce inheritance.
• Esther in love with Allan Woodcourt but accepts the proposal of Mr. Jarndyce.
• Jarndyce and Jarndyce case dismissed.
• The legal case consumed all the money.
• Richard soon died.
• Jarndyce released Esther from marrying him.
• Esther married to Allan
• Major plots of the novel are Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit, secret of Lady Dedlock
and identity of Mr. George.
• Major Characters:
• Esther Summerson: A selfless and lovable character who was an orphan and found to
he the illegitimate daughter of Lady Dedlock.
• Lady Honoria Dedlock: Mistress of Chesney Wold, whose secret was revealed in the
novel. But wary of pursuing relationship with her daughter Esther.
• John Jarndyce : Ward of Jarndyce and Jarndyce and guardian of Ada, Richard and
Esther who was generous and kind.
• Mr. Tulkinghorn : The lawyer of Jarndyce and Jarndyce case who found to be cunning
and selfish man which led to his eventual murder.
• George Rouncewell : A former soldier, his identity as the son of Dedlocks’
housekeeper is revealed.
• Richard Carstone : A ward of Jarndyce who got obsessed with Jarndyce and Jarndyce
and sacrifices his life in the law pursuit.
• Other characters: Ada Clare, Sir Leicester, Hortense, Jo, Captain Hawdon (Nemo),
Inspector Bucket, etc.
• Themes:
• Social problem novel.
• Satirical attack on Court of Chancery and the legal system.
• Importance given to nobility.
• Family life
• Superficiality of society.
• Love and romance.
• Symbolism:
• Winds in the east : Esther’s influence on Jarndyce.
• It also represents the changeable and unpredictable life just like the direction of wind.
• Miss Flite’s Birds : All the people who are trapped in the Jarndyce and Jarndyce law
suit.
• The release of the birds symbolises the dismissal of the lawsuit.
• Mr. Woodcourt’s flower : Represents the past that was never revisited.
• Fog : Fog in the opening represent the whole society as he sees.
Hard Times:
• The subtitle of the novel is For These Times.
• It was his tenth novel.
• It was serialised in his own weekly A Household Words.
• It is the shortest novel of Dickens with no preface and no illustrations.
• Unlike his other novels which has London as one of the setting, this novel was fully
set in Coketown.
• The novel deals with the hazards industrialisation has on a community and how the
dehumanization of human mind led to the downfall of the characters.
• The novel follows a classical tripartite structure and the title of each book alludes to
Galatians 6:7, “ For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”.
• The novel is divided into three books – Sowing, Reaping and Garnering.
• Plot:
• Sowing : All the character sowed the seeds for their impending destiny.
• Mr. Gradgrind was an exponent of facts and scorned the idea of fancy and
imagination.
• He taught this idea in his school and as well as his children, Tom and Louisa.
• Sissy Jupe a student of Gradgrind lived a life of imagination and empathy.
• Gradgrind took over her education.
• Josiah Bounderby, wealthy banker and mill owner, a friend of Gradgrind marries
Louisa.
• The workers in the mill were called “the hands” and their leader was Stephen
Blackpool.
• Reaping : James Harthouse, a wealthy sophisticate from London who becomes a
disciple of Gradgrind.
• Mrs. Sparsit spies the relationship between Louisa and Harthouse. Louisa leaves
Bounderby and returns to her father.
• “The Hands” formed a workers union against Bounderby. They ousted Stephen for
not supporting them and Bounderby dismisses him for suspecting him a part of the
union. He leaves Coketown.
• Bank is robbed. Everybody suspected Stephen Blackpool.
• Garnering : Stephen returns hearing the news of robbery to prove his innocence.
• But dies on his way to Coketown in the hands of his love Rachael.
• Tom was the real culprit. He leaves England.
• Each character’s fate was determined in the way they were nurtured.
• Gradgrind realises the follies of his ideology and started regretting for his children’s
unfortunate life.
• Louisa learned sympathy
• Sissy Jupe marries and have children and leads a happy life.
• Bounderby wanders the streets of Coketown and dies miserably.
• Characters:
• Thomas Gradgrind : He was an educator who taught only facts and statistics. The
novel begins by Gradgrind’s words, “Now what I want is facts”. He calls himself as an
“eminent practical” man.
• Louisa : In her father’s upbringing she feels disconnected from her imaginations and
emotions. She only feels compassion for her brother Tom.
• Tom : Eldest son of Gradgrind who worked as an apprentice at Bounderby’s bank. An
unscrupulous and hypocritical man he only cared for money than his own sister.
• Mr. Bounderby : A wealthy man who calls himself a self-made man and lies about his
childhood.
• Sissy Jupe : The daughter of a clown, who is in contrast to Louisa with a loving and
affectionate character. Sissy represents Victorian feminity.
• Stephen Blackpool : A hand in the mill who represents honesty and integrity.
• Mrs. Sparsit : Bounderby’s housekeeper who is selfish and manipulative and from an
aristocratic lineage.
• Other characters : Mrs. Bounderby, Bitzer, Mr. Sleary, Rachael, James Harthouse, Mrs.
Pegler, Slackridge, etc.
• Themes:
• Fact vs fancy
• Industrialisation and its evils : dehumanizing effects on workers ( the workers were
called “the hands” for their hands were the only part useful for them)
• Utilitarianism
• Unhappy marriage
• Feminity
• Fidelity
Little Dorrit:
• The novel was serialised from 1855 to 1957.
• This is a story of a young lady Amy Dorrit, called as Little Dorrit whose life revolves
around the life in debtor’s prison at Marshalsea
• This is also a love story between Little Dorrit and Arthur Clennam.
• Through the novel Dickens satirises the institution of debtor’s prison where poor,
naive people become the victims of cruel bankers.
• Themes : Family, morality and ethics, imprisonment, poverty and wealth, etc
• Characters : Amy Dorrit, William Dorrit, Arthur Clennam, Mrs. Clennam, Fanny Dorrit,
Mr. Merdle, Rigaud, Daniel Doyce, etc.
 A Tale of Two Cities
• The second historical novel by Charles Dickens.
• It was serialised in the weekly All The Year Round.
• The novels was set in London and Paris before and during French Revolution.
• The sources of the novel are Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution and a ply by
Willkie Collins, The Frozen Deep.
• The novel has an omniscient narrator.
• It tells the story of Mr. Manette, a French doctor who is imprisoned in the jail of
Bastille, his release and life in London and Paris along with his daughter Lucie during
French Revolution.
• The novel is divided into three parts
➢ Book the first : Recalled to Life
➢ Book the second : The Golden Thread
➢ Book the third : The Track of Storm.
• The opening lines of the novel is oft quoted,
“ It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was
the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it
was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it
was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we
were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way...”
• The last speech by one of the character Carton is also equally important,
“ It is a far, far better thing than I do, than I have ever done, it is a far, far better rest,
that I go to, than I have ever known.”
• Unlike the other novels of Dickens in which character development is done through
dialogues, this novel has a unique feature in which the deviations of the plot resulting
in the character development.
• Plot:
• In 1775, Javis Lorris accompanies Lucie to Paris where her father was imprisoned.
• Lucie finds her father who is deranged and Lorry assures that her love and affection
can bring him back.
• In 1780, Charles Darnay, a Frenchman accused of spying was on a verdict where Lorry
is called as a witness.
• Manette completely recovered witnesses the court session with his daughter.
• Stryver his lawyer founds that the witnesses John Barsad and Roger Cly are the real
culprit.
• Carton was a look alike of Darnay
• Court acquits Darnay.
• Darnay and Carton gets attracted to Lucie. But, Lucie returns the love of Darnay and
they soon get married.
• In France, Darnay inherits the Evremonde family, which he renounced because of the
evil background of his family.
• Darnay continues as a tutor of French language and literature.
• In 1789, Darnay returns Paris on demand of his family steward which resulted in his
imprisonment.
• Dr. Manette’s testimony released Darnay as he was once a prisoner there.
• He again gets arrested on Defarge’s accusation that Evremondes where the
murderers of Madame Defarge’s family.
• He was sentenced to death.
• Manette revert to dementia.
• Carton arrives Paris and helps Darnay out of prison by disguising himself as Darnay
and taking his place in the prison.
• He sacrifices his life for his love Lucie.
• Characters:
• Javis Lorris : He was a loyal friend of Darnay who helps in the reunion of Manette
family.
• Dr. Manette : A French doctor who was traumatised by the eighteen years of
imprisonment in the Bastille prison. He was a lovable father for Lucie.
• Lucie : A character of kindness and compassion who takes care of her father. She is a
typical Dickensian woman.
• Charles Darnay : A French man of noble birth who condemns his family lineage for its
cruel background. He marries Lucie.
• Sydney Carton : An unsuccessful lawyer who is in love with Lucie and sacrifices his life
for the sake of Lucie.
• Other characters : Monsieur Defarge, Madame Defarge, Marquis Evremonde, John
Barsad, Robert Cly, etc.
• Themes : Resurrection, Sacrifice, tendency toward violence and oppression in
revolutionaries, class, etc.
• Symbols:
• The Woodman and the Farmer symbolises Fate and Death respectively.
• Journey of the mail coach represent the crisis of Manette family.
• Spilling of wine represent bloodshed and massacre in the streets of Paris.
• The mill, the grindstone and the carmagnole symbolises destruction.
• The echoing steps represent the French Revolution.
• The Bastille is a symbol of Tyranny.

Great Expectations :

• Thirteenth and penultimate completed novel of Dickens.

• It is the second bildungsroman novel after David Copperfield.
• It was written in first person narrative.
• Serialised from 1860 to 1861 in All The Year Round.
• Chapman and Hall published the book in three volumes in 1861.
• The novel is set in Kent and London.
• Extreme imagery and colourful characters are the main features of the novel.
• The novel concerns the journey of Pip to his maturation.
• This work discusses how the life of people become awful with the introduction of
machines which reduced human labour.
• Plot :
• Pip who is an orphan lives with his loveless sister and brother in law.
• One day he encounter a convict, named Magwitch whom he helps with food and file.
• He was recaptured.
• He was sent to Satis House of Miss Havisham and her adopted daughter Estella.
• Pip feels affection for Estella which was not returned.
• He becomes the apprentice of his kind-hearted brother in law who was a blacksmith.
• Pip suddenly gets a huge fortune from an anonymous benefactor whom he believes
to be Miss Havisham.
• He enters the high society and moves to London.
• But soon its revealed that all his fortune came from Magwitch and everything is
under danger.
• Magwitch and Pip decides to leave London.but before that Magwitch and his enemy
Compeyson engage in a fight and was killed.
• Magwitch was arrested and soon died.
• Pip immersed in debt and he was about to get arrested but was saved because of his
grave physical condition.
• Joe nursed him back to life and paid off all hi debt.
• Ye returned to Satis House to find widowed Estella and they two get married.
• Characters :
• Pip : Original name Philip Pirrip. The protagonist and the narrator of the novel who is
romantic and unrealistic. He is having greater expectations that are sometimes
unreasonable.
• Estella : The ward of Miss Havisham whom she brought up to revenge all men with
her beauty. She never returned the love of Pip and always cold towards him
• Miss Havisham : the resident of the manor Satis House who is partly insane as she
was abandoned on her wedding. She wanders around her house in a faded wedding
dress, with a decayed cake on his her table and all the clock stopped at same time.
• Abel Magwitch : A criminal who is seen in the beginning of novel. He is impressed by
Pip and started saving a huge fortune to upgrade Pip’s living condition. He is the
father of Estella.
• Joe Gargery : The brother-in-law of Pip who is sympathetic towards Pip and helped
him in all his difficulties.
• Other characters : Mrs. Joe, Compeyson, Drummle, Jaggers, Herbert Pocket, orlick,
Wemmick, etc.
• Themes :
• Ambition, self improvement ( moral, social and educational), social class, crime and
guilt, education, love, etc.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

• A major writer from the early generation of novelists from Victorian era, a
contemporary to Dickens.
• Like Dickens he is also a representative of realism but both of them differed in many
ways.
• Thackeray was born in Calcutta, India in 1811 as the son of Richmond Thackeray who
was a Collector in the East India Company.
• After his fathers death, Thackeray came to London and continued his studies at
Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge.
• He disliked Charterhouse which is evident from how he parodied it in his fictional
“Slaughterhouse”.
• He wrote two fictions in the University periodicals – “The Snob” and “The
Gownsman”.
• He did not complete his degree.
• He lost his inheritance through gambling.
• He visited Germany in 1830s and met Goethe.
• He studied law at Middle Temple after his return, which also he did not complete.
• He started his career as a painter in which he could not succeed. Pickwick Papers was
first planned to be illustrated by Thackeray, but the author found it unsuitable.
• Later he became a hardworking journalist.
• He contributed his articles to many publications like Fraser’s Magazine, Morning
Chronicle, New Monthly Magazine and The Times.
• He was married to Isabella Shawe a simple artless woman. Their marriage was happy
at the beginning.
• In 1840 Isabella had a mental breakdown from which she never recovered, she
survived with Thackeray for thirty years.
• They had three daughter and the second daughter died early which worsened
Isabella’s condition.
• He had a successful association with Punch in which he satirised the snobbishness of
English society through series of articles.
• These articles were reissued as The Book of Snobs in 1848 in which he tells, “ he who
meanly admires mean things is a snob”.
• As an editor, Thackeray rejected the poem of Elizabeth Barret Browning as it
contained the usage of ‘harlot’.
• He write under different pseudonyms which was a trend at that time like George
Savage Fitzboodle, Michael Angelo Tit Marsh, Theophile Wagstaff, C J Yellowplush,
Esq. William, etc.
• With the publication of Vanity Fair in 1847, the popularity of Thackeray went high.
• He conducted a series of lecture in England and America from 1851 to 1852.
• After the death of his wife he had a platonic relationship with Jane Brookfield who
was the wife of Thackeray’s friend from Cambridge. She mentally supported him and
was a comfort for him in his days of miseries.
• Dickens and Thackeray were initially good friends, but later on their relationship
worsened and had many controversies regarding Dickens’ relationship with Ellen
Ternan.
• In his later years he became more addicted to food and ate enormously, he was even
referred as “the greatest literary glutton who ever lived”.
• He died on the morning of a Christmas Eve on 23 December 1863.
• He was buried at Kensel Green Cemetery on December 30.
• A commemorative bust was built in Westminster Abbey.
• His first home Turnbridge Wells in Kent was changed to a dining restaurant which
was named after him.
• Some of his works were translated to Russian during 1850s. E N Akhmatova was one
among the translators.
• Features of his writings:
• Thackeray was a realist who painted the world as it is. It is accurate and precise in
every essence .
• He was a person of keen observation who had a great knowledge on the life and
mind of human beings.
• He never attempted exaggeration or elevation of characters like Dickens instead he
was exact and objective.
• He followed the tradition of Jonathan Swift and Henry Fielding in the usage of
realism.
• His major focus was on the exposure of the evils and vices of the society where there
is an exact depiction of the negative characters.
• His writings also possess a satirical quality with the usage of subtle of humour.
• His satires are acute and bitter. He ridiculed the hypocrisy and snobbishness of the
English society.
• Dickens’ character development is dynamic as it progresses or digresses with the
advancement in the story.
• He views his characters as if he is viewing them from a distance. This new
phenomenon was later called as objective realism.
• He was also a moralist. His works sole aim was not entertainment but instead to
instruct the readers. He never took the badge of a reformer and believed he never
could. Yet he gave a moralistic impression through his works.
• In that case we can say he was a pessimist.
• He never focussed on the heroic and sentimental life in literature.
• Never can we see a perfect hero or heroine.
• He was of the belief that the evils and vices are the positive ideals in literature than
the good.
• Therefore, ridiculed the crippled society for its hypocrisy.
Works:
• The Yellowplush Papers (1837)
• Catherine : A Story (1839 to 1840) : It tells the story of criminal in an unflattering way.
He intends to criticise the glorified criminals of the time. He even criticised Dickens
for the celebration of criminality in Oliver Twist.
• A Shabby Genteel Story (1840)
• The Paris Sketchbook (1840)
• Second Funeral of Napoleon (1841)
• The Irish Sketchbook (1843)
• The Luck of Barry Lyndon :
• A picaresque novel serialised in Fraser’s Magazine in 1844.
• It tells the story of an Irish gentry whose journey to become an English aristocrat.
• The novel is based on Andrew Robinson Stoney.
• It is reissued under the title “The Memoir of Barry Lyndon, Esq.” in 1856.
• It is narrated by Barry Lyndon.
• The novel was adapted in 1985 to a film by Stanley Kubrick as Barry Lyndon.
• He wrote this novel under the pseudonym George Savage Fitz Boodle.
• It is a satirical narrative on the protagonist’s search for success and fortune.
• Plot: Redmond Barry, a roguish Irishman, leaves his homeland after shooting a man.
• He becomes a soldier of fortune in the English and Prussian armies.
• Later he becomes a professional gambler.
• He is a man of fashions and courts a wealthy widow, marries her and assumes the
aristocratic lineage through the name Lyndon.
• He mistreats both his wife and her brother
• He gambles everything and nothing left.
• She breaks the alliance. He was put in jail only cared by his mother.
• Characters : Barry Redmond ( Lyndon), Nora, John Quin, Lieutenant Fakenham,
Captain Potzdorff, Chevalier de Balibari, Lord Bullingdon, Bryan, etc.
• Themes : Social mobility, betrayal of trust, humanity, life, destiny, ambition, class, etc.
• Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Garnd Cairo (1846)
• Mrs. Perkin’s Ball (1846) : Written under the pseudonym M A Titmarsh
• The Book of Snobs (1848)
• Vanity Fair :
• “A panoramic portrait of English society”.
• The first novel written under his own name.
• It was serialised from 1847 to1848.
• The novel is subtitled as “Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society”.
• It was published as a book in 1848 and is subtitled as “A Novel Without a Hero”
• The narrator of the novel is omniscient and at the same time unreliable.
• The novel is framed as a puppet play.
• The novel is named after the fair organized by Beezlebub in Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s
Progress.
o This is the chapter in which Christian and his friend Faithful visits Vanity Fair
on their way to Heaven.
 o A lot of merchandises were there for sale like precious metals and stones,
houses, lands and trades, honours, kingdoms and countries, pleasures of all
sort, family, master and servant, etc.
o They buy nothing except for truth. They are put in cage and led up in chain
down the fair.
• Thackeray’s intention of writing the novel was not just as an entertainment but as a
medium of instruction.
• It has a mission and moral.
• It ridiculed the English society – the class consciousness, the military power, the
institution of marriage and its hypocrisy and snobbishness.
• The novel is rather formless with no hero or heroin, no plot conventions and an
illusion of reality.
• The style of the novel is like a detailed summary with some dramas and essays.
• He never focus on the inner thoughts of tye character instead he gave appropriate
comments to justify the characters to the readers.
• The novel was set during before and after the Battle of Waterloo.
• The settings of the novel are London and Brighton and also parts of the continent
like Paris, Rome, Brussels and Pumpernickel (a German principality)
• Plot:
• The novel revolves round the life of two friends Amelia Sedley and Becky Sharp who
were friends.
• Amelia was from an affluent family and who is passive and kindhearted.
• Becky (Rebecca) Sharp, a daughter of a penniless artist was ambitious and amoral.
• Becky plans to marry Joseph Sedley which fails as he was discouraged by George
Osborne.
• She marries Rowdon Crawley, a young officer from aristocratic family. His aunt
disinherit him for marrying Becky.
• She leads a life of fashion with the aid of Lord Steyne.
• Rowdon discovers Becky’s treachery, leaves her and departs to become the Governor
of Coventry Island.
• Becky moves to the Island.
• Amelia’s father was ruined.
• William Dobbin loved Amelia but she married George Osborne who dies in the Battle
of Waterloo.
• Amelia’s parents were rude to Amelia and her son.
• Amelia leaves his son in the custody of his grandfather Mr. Osborne and travels to
Continent and meets Becky.
• Dobbin returned from India and discourages Amelia of Becky.
• Dobbin and Amelia marries.
• Becky ensnares Joseph but he dies suspicious.
• Rowdon dies and the novel ends by Becky as a pious widow.
• Characters:
• Amelia Sedley : A good natured, passive andd not so beautiful woman who will be
attracted by men once they get to know about her. She was obsessed with her son
and the memories of her husband George Osborne who died in the Battle of
Waterloo.
• Becky Sharp : A character in stark contrast to Amelia, who is intelligent, positive and
without conscience. She uses her wit to ensnare men. She desires for financial
security and a stable position in the society. She manipulates and lies easily.
• George Osborne : A soldier who marries Amelia. He is a gambler, self-centred and
prideful.
• Joseph Sedley : Brother of Amelia whom Becky tries to seduce. He is fat and only
thing he is interested is eating, drinking and sleeping. He is a coward.
• William Dobbin : A character who has some hero like quality in the novel and the only
gentleman. He loves Amelia sincerely. Even Becky feels attracted towards Dobbin.
Thackeray points out that, “ his feet are too big for him to qualify in Vanity Fair.
• Themes:
• Vanity is the major theme of the novel. “All is vanity and all are vain”.
• Heroism. The novel deconstructs the ideal of literary heroism.
• Truth vs ideal
• The disintegration of social values.
• A novel of social criticism which parodies the selfish and pretentious society.
• The History of Pendennis: His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His
Greatest Enemy.
• It is a bildungsroman novel.
• It deals with the Bohemian literary underground.
• The protagonist of the novel is Arthur Pendennis, son of a selfless widow.
• The novel moves from his romantic involvements to his experience at Oxbridge
University and his subsequent journey to a journalist.
• This character appears in his succeeding novels The Newcomes and The Adventures
of Philip.
• The theme of the novel concerns the changes taking place in England.
• Rebecca and Rowena :
• It is a novella.
• It satirises the Victorian admiration for the medieval.
• The novel begins with a marriage.
• It questions the ending of Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe.
• It begins with the marriage od Sir Wilfrid and Rowena.
• Thackeray mocks imperialism in this work.
• He unites Ivanhoe and Rebecca.
• Men’s Wives (1852)
• The History of Henry Esmond (1852)
• A historical novel published in 1852.
• The novel is set in the backdrop of seventeenth and eighteenth century, especially
during the English Restoration.
• Major events in the novel are Glorious Revolution, War of the Spanish Succession,
Hamilton- Mohun Duel and Hanoverian Succession.
• The novels major character Henry Esmond is a Colonel in service of Queen Anne of
England.
• He was an orphan and was taken care by Lord and Lady Castlewood along with their
daughter Beatrix.
• The novel gives a new convention of heroine through Beatrix who is emotionally
complex and bold.
• Esmond falls in love with Beatrix which fails.
• Later in his maturity he marries Lady Castlewood.
• Esmond joins the campaign to restore James Stuart but is forced to accept the
protestant.
• The novel has a sequel, The Virginians, that takes place in England and America.
• “Queen Anne Style” a term that originated with the popularity of the novel is a term
used to refer to a design style in buildings and furniture.
• The English Humourist of Eighteenth Century (1853)
• The New Comes(1855)
• The Rose and The Ring (1855)
• The Virginians, Lovel the Widower, The Adventures of Philip, The Orphan of
Pimlici, etc.
BRONTË SISTERS
• Charlotte Brontë (1816 – 1855)
• Emily Brontë (1818 – 1848)
• Anne Brontë (1820 -1849)
• They lived in Hawor, a moor in Yorkshire.
• They were the daughters of Patrick and Maria Brontë.
• Patrick Brontë was a clergyman.
• They were raised by their aunt after their mother’s death who was deeply religious.
• They used masculine pseudonym to write as the women writings were not
acceptable
• CHARLOTTE BRONTË
• English poet and novelist from nineteenth century who is well known for her novel
Jane Eyre (1847).
• She was the eldest of the three.
• Her pen name was Currer Bell.
• Charlotte along with her sisters Elizabeth, Maria and Emily were sent to Clergy
Daughters’ School where the living condition was pathetic leading to the death of
Elizabeth and Maria.
• Emily and Charlotte were taken back home by Patrick where Charlotte acted as a
motherly figure fir the sisters.
• She began writing poems from the age of 13.
• Many of her poems were published in a homemade magazine called Branwell’s
Blackwoods Magazine which were detailed around the imaginary world of Glass
Town.
• Later Charlotte and Branwell developed a new imaginary world of Angria.
• She studied at Roe Head School, where she became a teacher during 1835 to 1838.
• In 1833, she wrote a novella The Green Dwarf under the name Wellesley.
• She wrote a letter to the Poet Laureate Robert Southey for an encouragement in
literary circle, but he replied, “Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life and
it ought not to be.
• She along with Emily visited Brussels in 1842 to join the boarding. They soon
returned.
• Some of the inspirations for her novel The Professor and Villette came from the
experience at Brussels.
• She became a governess at different houses.
• She along with her sisters published a collection of poems titled Poems, in the pen
name Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.
• She wrote her first novel The Professor, that failed to get a publisher. It was published
posthumously in 1857.
• While writing Shirley, her two sisters and brother died and which affected her a lot.
• She was brought up in a strict religious circumstances and therefore, her novels
portrayed the religious hypocrisy.
• She believed that religion was preached in one way and practiced entirely different.
• She was a critic of the society
• She married Arthur Bell Nicholls in 1854 and one year later, she got pregnant and
died soon on 31 March, 1855.
• Elizabeth Gaskell wrote the first biography of Charlotte, titled The Life of Charlotte
Brontë.
• Works:
Jane Eyre. An Autobiography
• One of the greatest novel during that period.
• It is a bildungsroman novel that concerns the life of the eponymous character Jane,
her journey from a miserable childhood to maturity.
• It was published by Smith Elder & Co.
• In America, it was published by Harber & Brothers.
• It is written in first person female perspective
• The novel incorporated naturalism, gothic and melodrama.
• The novel possess some autobiographic elements.
• Plot
• Jane an orphan spend her childhood with her abusive aunt and cousins at Gateshead
Hall.
• Jane received her education from Lowood School. Mr. Brocklehurst the headmaster
of the school who preached an artificial religious belief.
• He made the life of Jane miserable there.
• From Lowood she went to become the governess of Thornfield.
• Edward Rochester was the master of the mansion who was having a brooding and
dark past.
• She started experiencing some supernaturals from there.
• Jane and Rochester developed a intellectual communion.
• They decided to get married, but failed when Jane was revealed about Edward’s wife,
Bertha Mason who was a lunatic, locked in the attic of Thornfield.
• Jane left Thornfield and was taken by the Rivers family at Morton. St. John Rivers
proposed to Jane which she rejects.
• She looked for Edward in the Thornfield but learned that Bertha burnt the mansion
and she was killed in the fire.
• Edward became blind in the accident.
• Later they were reunited at the house of Ferdean.
• Characters :
• Jane Eyre : An intelligent and passionate woman, who had to face many hardships
and oppressions in order to achieve the autonony and to equalise the intellectual and
emotional imbalances imbalances in her life. She questioned the Victorian prejudices.
• Edward Rochester : A typical Byronic hero. He is the master of Thornfield. A
passionate man with a darkness looming around him symbolising the unpleasant
past he had with Bertha. He is a sympathetic figure in the novel.
• St. John Rivers : The benefactor of Jane at Rivers family. He is a cold and reserved
man who finds himself struggling with the lack of expressive emotions
• Mrs. Reeds : The cruel aunt of Jane who makes her life miserable at Gateshead Hall.
She is not ready to accept Jane at any cost as her husband favoured Jane more than
her children.
• Other characters : Mr. Lloyd, Bessie Lee, Helen Burns, Mr. Brocklehurst, Bertha
Mason, Grace Poole, Mr. Briggs, etc.
• Themes :
• Love vs autonomy. The novel is a quest of Jane to find love and the determination to
establish an identity of her own.
• Religion. The novel gives a stark contrast between religious duty and earthly
pleasures.
• Social class. A social critic of the Victorian prejudice on social class with Jane being a
governess.
• Relationship between men and women. This novel is sometimes called the ‘manifesto
of feminism’.
• Symbols : Bertha Mason symbolises Jane’s subconscious feelings.
• The Red room where Jane is locked by her aunt represent the obstacles that Jane
must overcome.
• Fire and Ice : Fire represents the emotions and passions, on the other hand ice
represent the suppression of these passions.
SHIRLEY (1849)
• The second published novel of Charlotte.
• It is having a weak plot.
• The novel is set during the industrial unrest after the Napoleonic War and War of
1812.
• The novel initiated the becoming of Shirley a woman’s name, which was actually a
masculine name.
• The novel is narrated by an unnamed third person.
• It is considered as the first regional novel with local materials and Yorkshire
characters.
• The novel deals with the life of two women who were brought up in entirely different
circumstances.
• Plot :
• Caroline, an orphan brought up by her uncle who is poor.
• She was in love with Robert, a mill owner. But us not entertained by her uncle.
• Shirley, the daughter of a wealthy parents who gave her a male name as they
expected a son.
• She is taken care by her governess after her parents death.
• She is an independent woman who managed the business and wealth on her own,
which was uncommon during that period.
• Shirley’s greatest investment was on Robert’s mill.
• Robert wants to marry Shirley for the financial security.
• Mrs. Pryor revealed to be the mother of Caroline talks for her daughter who is in love
with Robert.
• Shirley is visited by her uncle and his family along with Louis.
• He was Shirley’s former tutor. They develop an untold relationship.
• Robert proposes Shirley and is rejected.
• He leaves to London and after his return he was attacked by the debtors.
• He is nursed back to health and the relationship between both advances.
• Both the couples get married.
• Characters :
• Caroline : An orphan, looked after by her uncle who is good natured and poor. He is
in love with Robert.
• Shirley: An independent woman in stark contrast to Caroline, who has an identity of
her own.
• Robert : He is from a merchant family and loves Caroline. But financial circumstances
lead him to betray his love.
• Mrs. Pryor : Governess of Shirley who is kind. She is revealed to be Caroline’s mother
and wins back her daughter’s love.
• Other Characters: Hortense, Mr. Helstone, Louis Moore, etc.
• Themes : Gender equality, limited opportunities for women, class and status,
industrial unrest, etc.
VILLETTE
• It is written in 1853.
• Last novel published during her lifetime.
• The novel is written in the first person narrative.
• The novel concerns the life of Lucy Snowe who after her families tragedy move from
England to Villette, a small French speaking fictional town.
• Villette and its people were different from her place and therefore her life at there
became miserable leading to a nervous breakdown.
• Paul Emmanuel became her only saviour.
• The novel is set in the Kingdom of Labassecour which was believed to be modeled on
Belgium.
• It is autobiographical as Villette stands for Brussels where Charlotte and Emily went
during 1842.
• Charlotte worked there as an English teacher exactly like Lady Snowe who became a
teacher of English at an all girls school.
• The novel deals with psychological realism and gothic romance.
• Characters: Lucy ,Polly, Dr. John, Mrs. Bretton, Mr. And Mrs. Home, Ginevra, M Paul,
Madame Beck, etc.
• Themes: Lov3, Independence, Resilience, etc.
THE PROFESSOR
• It was her first written novel, published only after her death in 1857.
• It is written in first person narrative.
• The protagonist is William Crimsworth and he becomes the teacher in Brussels and
his love relationship with the fellow teacher and his journey to maturation, all become
the plot of the novel.
• It is based on Charlotte’s experience in Brussels, at Constantine Heger’s school.
• The preface to the novel was written by her husband Arthur Bell Nicholls.
• The major theme of the novel becomes religion where Charlotte look down on the
Catholics.
EMILY BRONTE
• Full name Emily Jane Bronte.
• Pseudonym – Ellis Bell.
• Born on July 30, 1818.
• She was considered as the greatest of the three for her novel Wuthering Heights.
• She was a reserved person who did not have much friends.
• She was close to Anne her younger sister. They created an imaginative world of
Gondal.
• She accompanied Charlotte to Brussels and Roe Head School.
• She became homesick and returned soon.
• She worked as teacher for a short while.
• The Wuthering Heights along with Anne’s Agnes Grey was published by Thomas
Cautley Newby in 1847 only after Charlotte’s Jane Eyre.
• At the beginning novel did not get much reception for the violence and sexual
passions expressed in the novel.
• Critics were hostile to it
• Later the novel became one of the best novels of nineteenth century.
• One year later, Emily’s health started declining and died of tuberculosis on December
1848.
• Works:
WUTHERING HEIGHTS
• A classic in English Literature which is highly imaginative.
• It is a gothic romance fiction.
• The novel is different from other novels for its poetic and dramatic way of
presentation.
• The novel deals with the major character Heathcliff’s revenge for the two families
residing in Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights.
• The novel is narrated by two people -Lockwood, a tenant at Thrushcross Grange and
Nelly Deen – servant at Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.
• Wuthering Heights: Earnshaw family- Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw, their children Catherine
and Hindley and adopted son Heathcliff.
• Thrushcross Grange : Linton family – Mr. and Mrs. Linton, their children Edgar and
Isabella.
• Plot : Lockwood a tenant at Thrushcross Grange, get trapped at Wuthering Heights
because of the storm and stays overnight where Nelly narrates him the life at the
moor twenty years back.
• Mr. Earnshaw adopted a gypsy orphan Heathcliff who was mistreated and abused by
Mrs. Earnshaw and Hindley.
• Catherine showed him some affection and loved each other.
• Catherine visits Thrushcross Grange and attracted by the sophistication of the family
she decides to marry Edgar.
• Heathcliff, in grief leaves the place and returns rich in order to revenge Edgar and
Hindley, for he thinks they are the reason why Catherine married.
• He seduce Edgar’s sister Isabella and marries her.
• Heathcliff cheats and buys the Wuthering Heights from Hindley. He mistreats
Hindley’s son Hareton.
• Isabella flees because of Heathcliff’s violence. She gave birth to a boy in England,
Young Linton. He was weak and pale.
• Catherine dies giving birth to a daughter, Cathy Linton.
• Heathcliff unites Young Linton and Cathy together so that he can have Thrushcross
Grange.
• Heathcliff dies who begs for redemption.
• Cathy and Hareton marry and they owned both Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering
heights
• Characters:
• Heathcliff : An orphan, wild, determined and proud, alienated himself from all kind of
emotion after Catherine left him.
• Catherine : A free spirited and passionate girl, who chose a refined life instead of her
love for Heathcliff and this was the cause for all tragedies in the novel.
• Edgar Linton : A contrast to Heathcliff, highly sophisticated and educated man who
wants to civilise Catherine.
• Isabella Linton : She married Heathcliff and becomes a victim of his revenge.
• Hindley : Abusive brother of Catherine who treats Heathcliff like a ”thing”.
• Cathy Linton : The daughter of Catherine and Linton who is unware of the past. She
brings back happiness to the two houses.
• Other characters : Hareton, Young Linton, Lockwood, Nelly Dean, etc.
• Themes:
• Conflict between different characters and characters and the self.
• Love and passion which is the main reason for the revenge plot.
• Social status and class distinction
• Symbols:
• Moors – Moors are infertile. It represents the love affair which is not fulfillled.
• Wuthering Heights – wuthering means stormy or turbulent wind. It stands for anger,
hatred and revenge.
• Thrushcross Grange – It stands for materialism and superficialiyy.
ANNE BRONTË
• Novelist and poet.
• She is the youngest of the three.
• She is not much popular like her sisters.
• Pseudonym – Acton Bell
• She spent most of her time at Haworth.
• Sent to boarding school at Mirfield.
• She was close to her aunt Elizabeth Branwell who influenced her lot.
• She became pupil at Roe Head School replacing Emily and became a hardworking
pupil.
• She became a governess at Ingham family of Blake Hall. Her traumatic experience
became the basis for Agnes Grey
• She wrote a poem on the death of her live William Weightmas - “I will not mourn
thee, lovely one.”
• She has two novels to her credits- Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wild Fell Hall.
• Her last poem was “A Dreadful Darkness Clowes in”.
• She died on May 28, 1849 at the age of 29 because of tuberculosis at Scarborough
and was buried there itself.

AGNES GREY, A NOVEL

• The second edition of the novel was published in 1850 by Charlotte.

• Anne’s experience as a governess is the basis of the novel.
• The major themes dealt in the novel are oppression and abuse of women or
governess in particular.
• Plot :
• Agnes Grey the daughter of Mr. Grey who became suddenly bankrupt.
• The Grey family spents modestly.
• Mother and sister treat her like child.
• In order to prove her ability she works as a governess at Bloomfield family.
• They were cold towards her and the children never heeded to her.
• One year later she was relieved from there and joined the Murrays to take care of the
two gurls Mathilda and Rosalie.
• She meets the new curate Edward Weston who develop a small relation with her.
• Agnes father dies. She returns home and starts a school.
• At the end Edward and Agnes are reunited.
• Characters: Agnes Grey, Edward Weston, Richard Grey, Alice, Mrs. Bloomfield,
Matilda, Rosalie, Sir Thomas Ashby, etc.
• Themes : Oppression, cruelty towards animals, empathy, isolation, etc.
THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL.
• The novel is published in 1848.
• It is written in the form of a series of letter by Gilbert Markham to his friend.
• It details about a young widow, Helen Graham who fled from her abusive husband
along with her son.
• She was an artist who met her livelihood through drawing picture.
• She was an outcast as she broke the Victorian conventions and the laws.
• The novel is considered to be the first feminist novel.
• Alcoholism, domestic violence, gender relation, displacement, etc becomes the major
themes of the novel.
GEORGE ELIOT :
• Original name, Mary Anne Evans.
• She took a male pseudonym to accept her work seriously and to keep a privacy.
• She was born in Warwickshire on 22nd November 1819 as the daughter of Robert and
Christina Evans.
• She was an intelligent girl who had formal education only up to the age of 16. After
that she was self taught and depended the library of Arthur Hall.
• Her mother’s death caused her to take the family responsibility. When her brother
married she moved with her father to Coventry.
• There she met Charles Gray a friend who accompanied her to Switzerland after her
father’s death.
• She moved London with the hope of becoming a writer in 1850.
• She write essays and reviews to a journal headed by a man called John Chapman.
• She met George Henry Lewes, a philosopher and critic and they decided to live
together.
• She mocked the women writers of the time in an essay to Westminster Review, titled
“Silly Novels by Lady Novelists” (1856)
• Her first work was a collection of three shirt stories published in Blackwood’s
Magazine and reissued under the title Scenes of Clerical Life (1858).
• She wrote her first novel Adam Bede, which got instant success.
• She continued to produce novels for next 15 years.
• Her last novel was Daniel Deronda (1876).
• George Lewes died in1878.
• She married John Walter Cross to become Mary Anne Cross.
• She died on 22nd December 1880 due to kidney disease.
• Hundred years later she was given a memorial stone in Westminster Abbey Poets’
Corner.
• Middlemarch is considered to be her greatest novel.
• Most of her novel were set in the provincial England with emphasise on realism and
psychological insight.
ADAM BEDE
• Her first novel written in 1859.
• The novel deals with the impact of Methodism on English country life.
• Eliot described it as “ A country story full of the breath of cows and scent of hay”
• The novel is distinguished by its portrayal of pastoral beauty.
• Eliot gave a moral tone to the novel.
• She also explores the psychology of the characters.
• The novel is an amalgamation of physical and psychological realism.
• The novel is set in the village of Hayslope during 1799.
• Plot:
• Adam Bede, the title character is the protagonist of the novel who is a carpenter,
hardworking, loyal and respected by every one.
• He is courting Hetty, niece of Mr. Poyser. She never returns his love.
• She instead fall for Captain Arthur Donnithorne.
• Adam’s brother Seth who is a Methodist carpenter falls for a Methodist preacher
Dinah Morris.
• Mr. and Mrs. Poyser accepts Adam’s proposal to marry Hetty.
• Hetty leaves before her wedding in search of Captain Arthur. She gives birth to a
child in between her journey and leaves the child in the woods to die.
• She was arrested and imprisoned and trailed for execution.
• Dinah and Adam became a solace for her during her last days. She died few years
later.
• Adam and Dinah marries.
• Characters:
• Adam Bede : A man of extreme sincerity and loyalty. He is honest to every one in his
life . He hates evil. He is a hardworking man. According to him a job well done is itself
a reward.
• Dinah Morris : Niece of Mrs. Poyser who is a person of gentle demeanour. She is a
comfort for everyone who is in difficulty. Her character attracts people towards her.
• Hetty : The beautiful niece of Mr. Poyser. She uses her beauty to attract people
towards her. Her outer beauty conceals her inner ugliness. She is selfish and shallow.
• Captain Arthur Donnithorne : A regimental officer. He believe himself to be good and
does things to prove himself good before people. He loves Hetty but more than that
he is concerned about the social status.
• Other characters : Seth Bede, Rachel Poyser, Martin Poyser, Aldophous Irwine, etc.
• Themes:
• Inner beauty vs outer beauty, importance of hard work, love, self interest, religion,
etc.
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS:
• It was published in in 1860 in three volumes by William Blackwood.
• The first American edition was done by Harper & Brothers.
• It comes under the genre of psychological and domestic fiction.
• The novel is set in Lincolnshire.
• It tells the story of two siblings Tom and Maggie Tulliver.
• Plot : Tom and Maggie are the children of Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver.
• Mr. Tulliver is the owner of Dolcote Mill in the banks River Floss.
• Philip Wakem son of a lawyer takes the Mill, becoming enemy of Tom and his father.
• Maggie and Philip are in secret relationship.
• Mr. Tulliver is bankrupt and becomes bedridden.
• Tom struggles to pay the debt.
• Tom prevents Maggie from seeing Philip.
• Debts are paid. Mr. Tulliver wants to punish Walem by whip. He dies soon after that.
• Maggie once visit Lucy her cousin and meets her love Stephen whom she befriends.
• They starts seeing each other and one day Stephen ask her to elope but she rejects it
on account of her families pride.
• The rumour spreads. Tom kicks her out of the house.
• A flood occurs. Maggie tries to save her brother Tom, but both get killed.
• Characters :
• Maggie Tulliver : The heroine of the novel, intelligent and passionate, she is in
constant conflict with the family and society and as well as with her desires.
• Tom Tulliver : Older brother of Maggie. He is a practical man with a determined mind.
He is obsessed with justice and family’s honour.
• Mr. Tulliver : The owner of Dolcote Mill. He is stubborn and short tempered. He is
more attached to Maggie and is proud of her intelligence.
• Philip Walem : He is the son of the lawyer Walem. He is crippled. Educated and clever
loves Maggie.
• Other characters : Stephen, Mrs. Jane Glegg, Gritty Morris, etc.
• Themes :
• Loss of innocence.
• Communal vs individual interests.
• Renunciation and sacrifice.
• Practical knowledge vs bookish knowledge.
• Symbols :
• River Floss : Maggie’s deep emotions which are unpredictable and it also stands for
the unknown paths of Maggie’s destiny.
• St. Ogg : In Maggie’s dream, Tom and Lucy in the boat stands for St. Ogg and Blessed
Virgun respectively. At the end, she itself becomes St. Ogg.
SILAS MARNER (1861)
• The Weaver of Raveloe is the subtitle of the novel.
• It comes under the genre of realistic novel.
• The novel incorporates impact of religion and industrialisation on the community.
• The novel deals with a solitary and miserly linen weaver, who loves gold more than
anything.
• In the past he was accused of theft and loss faith in God. He left the place to Raveloe.
• He is robbed of everything and his love for a golden haired baby girl named Eppie
led to his redemption.
• He later takes care of the girl who is the illegitinate daughter of Godfrey Cass.
• Themes : Faith, morality, the individual and society, limits of knowledge, pure and
natural human relationship.
• Characters: Silas Marner, Eppie, Godfrey Cass, Nancy Lammeter, Dunstan, etc.
ROMOLA
• A historical novel set in the city of Florence.
• The time period was during Italian Renaissance.
• The novel was first published in 14 parts by Cornhill Magazine from 1862 to 1863.
• It was published into a book of three volumes by Smith Elder & Co in 1863.
• The novel also details the life of former reformer, Girolama Savonarola and also the
downfall of ruling Medicis.
• It tells the story of a young lady Romola in the backdrop of the life of Florence in the
fifteenth century.
• Tito, a Greek opportunist, marries Romola. He deceives her and engages in unfaithful
political dealings.
• He is killed by his adoptive father for abandoning him when he needed him.
• Romola takes care of Tito’s other wife and children
• Romola then had a reason to live. She considered human sympathy as the moral
imperative.
• The major theme of the novel is the difficulty to do the right thing when the wrong is
so easy.
FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL
• It is a social novel which discuss the political disputes in a small town during the first
Reform Act of 1832.
• The novel is published in 3 volumes in 1866.
• Felix Holt, an educated artisan who follows a passionate idealism.
• Harold Transome who came to Loamshire to claim the family estate and to be the
candidate of Radicals.
• Esther, the heroine, who believes herself to be the daughter of a Nonconformist
Minister, but actually a heir of Transome estate.
• Esther loves Felix, but had to choose between Felix and Harold.
• Felix imprisoned for killing a man accidently.
• Eventually chooses Felix.
• The novel has two flaws :
➢ The title character is too good to be a hero.
 ➢ Complex plot.
• The major theme discussed in the novel is the artificiality of the English Society.
• It also deals with politics and class distinction.
MIDDLEMARCH
• It is subtitled as A Study of Provincial Life.
• It was published in 8 instalments from 1871 to 1872.
• The novel is set in the town of Middlemarch, a fictional English Midland town from
1829 to 1832.
• The novel consists of different stories and lots of characters.
• The major theme of the novel is status of women and the nature of marriage.
• It is a realistic novel.
• The novel is written in the third person narrative.
• Major events that take place in the novel : Reform Act (1832), beginning of the
railways, death of King George IV, succession of his brother, the Duke of Clarence.
• It details a societies reactionary attitude the changes that are unacceptable.
• Plot : Dorothea, an intelligent women commits an error in judging and marrying
Edward Casaubon, who treats her passively.
• She befriends Ladislaw and a new relationship blooms between them.
• Casauban gets jealous of Ladislaw.
• Casauban suffers a heart attack but he prevents Ladislaw from visiting him.
• He wants Dorothea to follow his desires even after his death, but died before she
could promise.
• In his will, he gave a clause in which Dorothea will disinherit if she marry Ladislaw.
• But they get married. Ladislaw become a politician and Dorothea condemns.
• Lydgate, a naive doctor who reached Middlemarch falls for the polished and refined
lady Rosamond Vincy, who only married him to improve her social standing without
knowing he is poor.
• Lydgate realise his mistake. The extravagancy of Rosamond ruins him financially.
• He seeks a loan from Nicholas Bulstrode, who refused him firstly.
• Later he gives the money to Lydgate which is actually a part of his scheming to kill
Raffles and blame Lydgate for his murder.
• Among the people who believed Lydgate is innocent, Dorothea was also there.
• Lydgate moves to London with Rosamond Vincy and become wealthy and dies at the
age of 50.
• Characters :
• Dorothea Brook : The major character of the novel. She is intelligent but make
mistake in choosing the right person for marriage.
• Will Ladislaw : A man of great enthusiasm and talent who loves Dorothea and marries
her.
• Rasamond Vincy : A beautiful woman who is shallow and vain. She condemns
Middlemarch and always desired to attain a social status.
• Tertius Lydgate : Idealistic, talented and naive doctor, who like Dorothea makes
mistake in choosing the right partner.
• Themes :
• The imperfect marriage.
• Social Expectations.
• Self discovery
• Gender roles and expectations.
• Strength of rumours, etc.
• Symbols in the novels are the portrait of Will’s Grandmother, the haunting of Raffles,
horseback riding, lending, spending and debt, etc.
DANIEL DERONDA
• It was published in 8 parts in 1876.
• This is the only novel set in the Victorian society of her time.
• It is a social satire.
• The novel contains 2 main strands of plot which are united by the character Daniel
Deronda.
• It is a novel of anti Semitism
• The novel creates a stark contrast between its two female characters, Mirah Cohen
and Gwendolen.
• Mirah is a Jewish girl who marries Daniel.
• Daniel realises his identity as Jewish and therefore, they move to Palestine to help
establish a Jewish homeland.
• The Cohen family is appreciated by Jewish readers.
• The story of Gwendolen becomes the best part of the novel.
THOMAS HARDY
• The English novelist and poet of the nineteenth century.
• He was born on 2nd June 1840 at Higher Bokhampton near Dorchester in Dorset
County, England.
• He considered himself as a poet, but he became popular through his novels
• He wandered around exploring the rustic life and the connection with the nature.
• He attended local schools. Learned Latin, Greek, French and other classic languages.
• At the age of 16, he worked as an apprentice to an architect John Hicks.
• In 1862 he moved to London, immersing himself in the literary and cultural
atmosphere of the city.
• After his return from London, he completely devote himself to writing.
• He married Emma Lavinia Gifford (Emily) in 1874. She died in 1912.
• In 1914, he married Florence Emily Dudgale.
• He died on December 1928 at Max Gate, Dorchester.
• He wrote his final poem in his death bed to his wife Florence.
• His heart was buried in cemetery of St. Michael’s Church, Stinford, Dorset.
• His ashes were buried in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.
• Features :
• Thomas Hardy is famous for different genres of novel like novels of character and
environment, romance and fantasies and novels of ingenuity.
• His novels marked the dawn of modernism, slightly fading from the Victorian
idealism.
• He created the fictional town of Wessex, around the South and Southwest England,
Wessex was actually an Anglo Saxon Kingdom.
• The major subjects of his novel are rustic, poverty, simplicity, marriage and love, fate,
impact of industrialisation in the rural, etc.
• Most of his novels possess a pessimistic undertone providing a sad vision of life.
• Detailed description, controlled language and symbolism are the features of Hardy’s
works.
• Postmodern critics called him a Meliorist.
• His novels possess a pastoral voice.
• He resembles the story telling to that of in the Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancien
mariner.
• He also wrote dramas – The Dynasts (a verse drama) and The Famous Tragedy of the
Queen of Cornwall.
• During his early days, he wrote only poems. He produced more than thousands of
poems.
• In 1898, he produced his first collection of poem, Wessex Poems.
• He wrote 53 short stories, which were published as collected short stories.
➢ Wessex Tale (1879 – 1888)
➢ A Group of Noble Dames (1878-1890)
➢ Life’s Little Ironies (1882- 1893)
➢ A Changed Man (1881-1900)
• Novels:
The Poor Man and The Lady :
• The first novel written by Thomas Hardy which was not published as it failed to
impress the publishers.
Desperate Remedies :
• It is the first novel to be published.
• It was published by Tinsley Brothers in1871.
• The novel concerns the life of Cytherea Graye who loves Edward Spingrove, but the
circumstances forces her to marry the illegitimate son of Miss Aldclyffe, Aeneas
Manston.
• Mrs. Manston who is already married reveals to be the murderer of his wife Mrs.
Manston.
• Manston kidnaps Cytherea. Edward saves her and they both gets married.
• The novel ends happily. This is one of the few novels of Hardy with a pleasant
ending.
Under the Greenwood Tree:
• The second novel of Thomas Hardy.
• It is published anonymously.
• It is the first of the Wessex novel.
• The novel is divided in to five parts – Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn and
Conclusion.
• Plot:
• Dick Dewy, the member of Mellstock choir falls for the new village schoolmistress,
Fancy Day.
• Fancy’s beauty attracts many suitor like Shiner, a rich farmer and Mr. Maybold, the
new Vicar.
• Fancy’s father discourage the relationship between Dick and Fancy as a result her
health deteriorates.
• Mr. Maybold proposes her and promises her a stable life, which she was forced to
accept.
• Later Maybold learns the truth and ask Fancy to be honest with Dick through a letter.
• Fancy withdraws from the proposal and ask Maybold to keep it as a secret and
marries Dick.
• The ending of the novel is important. The joyful and humorous wedding day of Fancy
and Dick ends by a promise which is ironical.
• They promise to not to keep a secret between them, but it ends with a secret she
would never tell.
• The novels major theme is how modernity clashes with the life of the people in
Mellstock and also the goodness and importance of true love.
• The mood of the novel is light, romantic and cheerful.
A Pair if Blue Eyes :
• It is serialised from 1872 to 1873, in his own name.
• It concerns a love triangle of a young woman Elfride Swancourt and her two suitors –
Stephen Smith and Henry Knight.
• The story moves through her battle with her own heart.
• She marries another person Lord Luxellian.
• Some critics considered the novel is based on Hardy’ courtship on Emma.
• This novel implements the cliff-hanger technique.
Far From the Madding Crowd:
• The novel is one of the major literary success of the time..
• It was serialised in Cornhill Magazine in 1874.
• It is another Wessex novel, which deals with love, betrayal and honour
• The novel is set in a farming community of the Victorian England.
• The title of the novel is taken from Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard.”
• Plot:
• Bathsheba Everdene, a beautiful and free spirited young woman is caught in between
three suitors.
• Gabriel Oak, a shepherd who loses his flock of sheep becoming poor gets employed
in the farm of Everdene. She rejects his love.
• William Boldwood, a respectable man who owns the neighbouring farm, falls for her
when she gives him a valentine.
• Sergeant Francis Troy, a dashing personality take her like a conquest and marries her.
• Bathsheba, in the end marries Gabriel Oak whose love for her is pure.
• Thee novel is distinct for its complex sentences, lengthy descriptions of characters
and events and tye slow development of the plot.
It details the many faces of love through the different characters.
➢ Honest love – Gabriel Oak
➢ Heartfelt love – Boldwood
➢ Unscrupulous and manipulative – Sergeant Troy.
• Themes: True love, independence, reliability, fate, marriage as a trap, etc.
• Symbols: watches, Lambs vs Sword, Clothes for Bethsheba.
The Return of the Native
• It is published in 12 instalments by Belgravia in 1878.
• Due to the controversial themes in the novel it failed to get a publisher in the
beginning.
• It is set in the Egdon Heath, a barren moor in Wessex.
• The native mentioned in the title is Clim Yoebright.
• He was a jeweller in Paris who returned to Egdon Heath to become a school master.
• The novel discusses the failed marriages of Clim and his cousin Thomasin.
• Clim and Thomasin loved the rustic and traditional way of life. But their respective
partners Eustacia and Damon loved the city life.
• Eustacia and Damon develops a liking for each other.
• Eustacia is guilty of causing Clym’s mother’s death. She flees and dies drowning.
Damon also drowns in his attempt to save her.
• Thomas Hardy in his later edition added Thomasin and Diggory Venn’s marriage and
Clym becoming an itinerant teacher.
• The novel deals with the themes of sexual politics, desire, demands of society, etc.
The Trumpet Major (historical novel) – 1880
Two on a Tower ( a romance and novel of astronomy) – 1882
The Mayor of Casterbridge
• The subtitle of the novel is The Life and Death of a Man of Characters.
• It is published in 1886 by Smith Elder &Co.
• It is illustrated by Robert Barnes.
• The novel is set in a town which is a part of Wessex called Casterbridge.
• Casterbridge is based on Hardy’s own place Dorchester.
• Plot : Michael Henchard, the protagonist of the novel is an alcoholic. He auctions his
wife Susan and daughter Elizabeth Jane to a passing sailor steohen Newson.
• Henchard regrets his action before it was too late. He vows to avoid alcohol which he
did for the next 21 years.
• Susan lives with Newson for eighteen years as his wife. Newson is lost in a sea, Susan
is left penniless. She sets out to seek Henchard.
• Henchard become a successful merchant and the mayor of Casterbridge. He wants to
marry Susan again but he was betrothed to another lady Lucetta Templeman.
• Donald Farfrae, helps Henchard to distinguish standard grain an employs him.
• Henchard develops a grudge for Farfrae who becomes an independent merchant,
which result in his own disaster.
• Susan dies giving a letter which reveals the true father of Elizabeth Jane to be
Newson. Henchard becomes cold towards her.
• He wants to reconcile with Lucetta which was worsened by Jopp.
• Bankrupt, he become the employ of Farfrae
• Newson returns for his daughter but Henchard tells him Elizabeth is dead for which
later he regrets
• Henchard visits Elizabeth after her wedding with Farfrae. She neglects him.
• But later guilty they look for Henchard to find him dead.
• Characters :
• Michael Henchard : He is the “man of character” mentioned in the subtitle. He is the
protagonist who is beaten by the fate. He strong passionate man but is blinded by his
weakness.
• Susan ,: A simple woman, who is Henchard’s wife sold in an auction to Stephen
Newson.
• Elizabeth Jane : She is a beautiful girl . She wants to refine herself before Henchard.
She is ignorant of the past.
• Farfrae : A young, passionate man who through his determination and hard work
becomes successful. He is Henchard’s greatest competitor. He helps Henchard
multiple times.
• Other Characters : Lucetta , Newson, Jopp, Abel whittle, Benjamin Grower, etc.
• Themes : Blind fate, importance of character, the value of a good name, the
haunting past, etc.
• Symbols: The caged gold finch, the bull, the collision of the wagon.
The Woodlanders
• It is published by Macmillan’s Magazine in 1887 in three volumes.
• It is another Wessex novel set in Little Hintock.
• The novel concerns the life of Grace Melbury, an educated woman. She falls in love
with Giles Winterborne.
• Her father rejects their relationship. He wants Grace to marry a young doctor Edred
Fitzpiers.
• Fitzpiers was not a loyal man. He is having relation with women in the town, which he
denies first.
• After marriage his true self is revealed through his affair with Mrs. Charmond.
• Fitzpiers leaves the village with Mrs. Charmond.
• Grace wanted to get divorce but adultery was not enough to get divorce .
• Fitzpiers return to reconcile with his wife, but she goes to Giles where he is ill.
• He dies soon. Grace live with Fitzpiers after that.
• Nobody mourns Giles, except for Marty South, a young girl who loved Gile.
• Characters : Gioess Winterborne, Grace Melbury, Mr. Melbury.
Edred Fitzpiers, Suke, Mrs. Charmond
• Themes : The rustic life, poorly chosen partner, unrequited love, social class.
 Tess of the D’urbervilles:
• It is subtitled as A Pure Woman: Faithfully Presented indicating Hardy’s disagreement
with Victorian morality for considering Tess a fallen woman.
• It was censored and serialised in the news paper The Graphic in 1891.
• A Wessex novel, it details the struggle of Tess for her rights.
• The novel is structured into seven phases.
• The author gives a detailed description of the scenery, the major character in close
contact with nature.
• The novel is narrated from an inside point of view through the eyes of one of its
character s Tess, Angel or Alec.
• The novel also uses Pagan symbols like May - Day dance and Stonehenge.
• Plot :
• Tess, a pure and beautiful girl, whose life totally changed with the loss of purity.
• Seduced and raped by Alec, Tess escapes from her bitter past to a distant dairy farm.
• She meets her true love Angel and marries him. But he abandons her on wedding
night when he knows the past of Tess.
• Tess sacrfice herself for the sake of her family to Alec with the belief that Angel will
never return.
• Angel returns. Everything is too late. Desperate Tess kills Alec.
• She flees with Angel, soon arrested at Stonehenge and is executed.
• Characters :
• Tess: A very kind and sensitive woman who lost her purity because of her little
knowledge of man. She is the victim of the fate. She is more sinned against than
sinning.
• Angel : A free thinker, who believes in conventional morality leads him to abandon
Tess.
• Alec : the negative figure in the novel who is the cause for Tess’s disgrace.
• Other characters : Angel Clare, John Durbeyfield, Mrs. d’Urberfield, etc.
• Themes : Injustices of existence, Changing ideas of social class, Men dominating
women.
• Motifs : Birds, the Book of Genesis, Variant names.
• Symbols : Prince, The d’Urberville family vault, Brazil.
Jude The Obscure
• The novel is the last of Hardy’s completed novels.
• It is published in serialised form in 1895 and into a book in the same year.
• The novel suffered from lots of controversies because of its treatment of sex, religion
and marriage.
• Walsham How , the Bishop of Wakefield burnt the copies of the novel.
• The novel discusses the life of Jude Fawley, a working class whose dream to become
a scholar and to attain the love of his life is never fulfilled.
• Plot :
• Jude wants to enrol himself in Christminster (stands for Oxford).
• But his dream is destroyed by Arabella Donn, she seduces and traps him in to a
marriage with her. Arabella leaves Jude soon to Australia.
• Jude reaches Christminster and works there as a mason.
• He fall in love with Sue, whom Jude’s friend Mr. Phillotson marry.
• Mr. Phillotson feeling pity gives her to Jude
• Jude and Sue live together without any sexual relationship as Sue despised sex and
marriage.
• Arabella returns with little Jude, Jude’s son nicknamed “Little Father Time”
• Jude persuade her to se and have two children. The society despised their
relationship. So they led a nomadic life.
• On reaching Christminster Little Jude kills Sue’s two children and kills himself.
• Grief-stricken Sue visits Church and believes it to be a divine retribution.
• Guilty she remarries Phillotson as a punishment and has sex with him.
• Jude marries Arabella. He dies without fulfilling his dream to become a scholar and
the true love of his life.
• Characters :
• Jude : The title character who dreams of studying at Christminster, ends up becoming
a mason. He is a good person but not enough a great man as he think he is.
• Susanna Bridehead (Sue) : An unconventional lady who hates the institution of
marriage and is sceptical of religion.
• Arabella Donn : A beautiful and cunning woman who is in pursuit of men. She spends
time in bars and company of men.
• Richard Phillotson: A kind hearted friend of Jude who gives him the idea of studying
in University.
• Little Father Time : Son of Jude who lived with Arabella’s parents. He is having an old
man’s mind. He kills himself and the two children of Sue believing that they are the
reason for the couples misery.
• Themes :
• The problems in choosing the right partner.
• Religious hypocrisy.
• The pain of Godless existence
• Education
• Class system.
• Symbols : Birds and Christminster
• Significance of the title : It signifies Thomas Hardy uses it intentionally to show that
Jude is not a great man but a simple man who wishes to become great.
GEORGE MEREDITH
• He is a novelist and poet from the Victorian era.
• He was born on 12 February, 1828 at Portsmouth.
• His father inherited a tailoring shop which falling into debt and the family try hard to
prevent it from failing.
• His mother died and he inherited her money which was spend in his studies.
• Nothing much is known about his childhood, he was unwilling to disclose details
about it
• He was educated at Germany for two years.
• He studied law during 1845 working as an apprentice to an attorney for 5 years.
• He turned to writing, firstly contributing to magazines and newspapers.
• He began his literary career through poetry. His major influence was the Romantic
poet John Keats.
• Slowly shifted to writing novels which gave him popularity.
• He was deeply influenced by the struggles of Italy and Germany.
• In collaboration with Edward Gryffydh Peacock and Mary Nicholls, who were the
children of Alfred Love Peacock, began aa new journal Monthly Observer.
• He married Nicholls in 1849 and had a son Arthur. Their marriage was not happy.
• Nicholls left him in 1858 with another man to Italy.
• Modern Love a poetry collection believed to be based on the unhappy marriage of
Meredith and Nicholls.
• The Shaving of Shagpat : An Arabian Entertainment (1856) is his first work of fiction
written in 1856.
• The popularity of the work promoted him to write a novel The Ordeal of Richard
Feverel in 1859.
• He became a part time reader to a London publishing house, Chapman and Hall.
• One of his critically acclaimed lecture is An Essay on Comedy and the Uses of the
Comic Spirit.
• He died on 18 May, 1909at Box Hill, Surrey.
• Features of his writing:
• Meredith is famous for psychological novel. He gave importance to the psychology of
the character rather than the plot.
• He used wit and brilliant dialogues to standardise the quality of his work.
• Each of his work is a kind of rectification of the errors in the previous one.
• His early novels were written in the Victorian conventions. His later novels indicated a
transition to Modernism.
• The shifting social class and rapid development in industrialisation expressed in the
novels of Meredith become an influence for the next generation modernist writers.
MAJOR NOVELS :
The Ordeal of Richard Feverel
• The novel is subtitled as A History of Father and Son .
• It is published in the year 1859 by Chapman and Hall.
• The novel is sometimes considered as the first modern novel as it is dealt from a
psychological perspective.
• The novel concerns the relationship between an authoritarian and manipulative father
and son.
• Plot : The wife of Sir Austin Feverel elopes with a poet leaving the son Richard under
Sir Austin.
• Sir Austin, a scientific humanist considers schools corrupt and give Richard home
tutoring which he called “the system”.
• Richard is brought under strict authoritarian supervision.
• He is not allowed to meet with girls. Nevertheless he falls in love with Lucy
Desborough, which Sir Austin forbids.
• They get secretly married.
• Richard is sent to London. Meanwhile, Lucy gave birth to a baby under Sir Austin’s
care.
• Richard returns and get to know about the villainy of Lord Mountfalcon’s.
• They both engage in a duel and Richard was seriously wounded.
• Lucy loses his mind and dies.
• The novel ends with tragedy
• This novel is highly autobiographical – Thomas Hardy was left with his son Arthur
when his wife fled to Italy with an artist, Henry Wallis.
• The major theme of the novel is the inability of education to prevent human from
pursuing the passion.
Evan Harrington
• It is published in1861 as a comedy on Victorian presumption.
• It is partly autobiographical. Hardy uses his family’s tailoring establishment and his
own relatives as the subject if the novel.
• The novel discusses the struggles of Evan Harrington, who returns from abroad to
find his father dead and the tailoring shop under debt.
• It details the social climbing family of Great Mel ( Melchisedec Harrington, father of
Evan with his three married sisters.
• The novel contains the notable comic characters of Meredith- The Great Mel and his
daughter Louisa (Countess of Saldar).
• Evan’s lover Rose Jocelyn symbolises the epitome of Victorian womanhood.
Adventures of Harry Richmond
• It is a novel of romance with some picaresque elements .
• It is also loosely autobiographical with some melodramas.
• This is again a novel of father – son relationship.
• Here, the son struggle to find maturity by escaping from the fantasies of his father.
• Harry Richmond grandson of a wealthy squire lives with him at Riversly.
• Roy Richmond father of Harry claims his rights over Harry and takes him to London,
where he had some adventures and later sent him to a boarding school.
• He fled from there to Riversly and after a while he missedhis father and set out to
visit him.
• Harry ended up reaching Germany where he finds his father.
• Harry inherits a huge sum along with he will receive every year 20, 000 if he marries
Janet Ilchester.
• His father wants him to marry the Princess.
• Roy schemes a plan but it was failed. Princess marries a Prince of Germany.
• Janet and Harry gets married.
• Roy Ricmond killed in the fire at Riversly.
Beauchamp’s Career
• It is published in 1875.
• It is a satire on the conventions and portrays the life oof upper class radicals.
• The character of the novel Renée de Croisnel was Meredith’s favourite character.
• The novel details the life of a naval officer, Nevil Beauchamp who fails in his love with
Renee and Cecilia.
• Nevil stands for Parliament as a radical and is defeated. The continuous failure in love
and life deteriorates his health. He marries Jenny into a loveless relationship. He dies
in an attempt to save a child.
• Nevil’s ordeal is both political and personal.
The House on the Beach : A Realistic Tale:
• It is a novella appeared in 1877.
• The story of a young woman engaged an older man who threatens to reveal her the
identity of her father.
The Tale of Chloe
• It is subtitled as An Episode in the History of Beau Beamish.
• It is a tragic novel published in 1879.
• A story of a woman named Chloe or Catherine Martinsward who sacrifices her
fortune to saver her love from the prison who abandons her courts another woman.
On her effort to prevent the elopement she commits suicide.
• Like Meredith’s heroines Chloe’s decision creates all the personal disaster.
• The major characters of the novel are Chloe, Mr. Camwell, Sir Martin Casedly, Susan,
Mr Beau Beamish.
The Egoist : A Comedy in Narrative
• It is a comical novel about an egocentric character, Sir Willoughby Patterne, who
considers himself the epitome of goodness and excellence.
• It is also sometimes considered a tragi comical published in 1879 in three volumes.
• Sur Patterne in the novel attempts to marry someone worthy of him.
• Constantia Durham, Clara Middleton and Laetitia Dale are the three women in his life.
• Constantia and Clara knowing the shallowness and duplicity of Sir Patterne’s
character, escapes from his clutches.
• Laetitia who truly loves Patterne gets married to him at last.
• Egoism is the enemy of the novel.
Other works of George Meredith : Emilia in England (Sandra Belloni), Rhoda
Fleming, Vittoria, The House on the Beach, The Case of General Ople and Lady
Camper, The Tragic Comedians, Diana of the Crossways, Lord Ormont and His
Aminta, The Amazing Marriage, etc.
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
• Anthony Trollope is a Victorian novelist who did not receive much attention during
his lifetime.
• He was born on 24 April 1815 in London as the son of a barrister.
• He was educated at Harrow and Winchester.
• He became a junior clerk at a Post Office from 1834 to 1841.
• He then moved to Ireland, where he started his career with Irish tales.
• His works primarily concerned the middle class and upper middle class life of
Victorian England.
• Trollope in his novels foregrounded characters rather than the plot, but critics blamed
that his characters lacked depth.
• He was a prolific writer with 47 novels, 42 short stories and 5 travel books to his
credits.
• His career dipped towards his last years. Fortunately, critics of 20th century took the
effort to bring his works to the lime light.
• He died in London in 1882. He was buried at Kensal Cemetery along near to the tomb
of Willkie Collins.
• His first novel was published in 1855, titled as The Warden, which talks about a
warden of a people’s home, who exploits it in the name of charity.
• He is famous for the series of novel set in the fictional English town of Barsetshire
known as Chronicles of Barsetshire. The novels mainly deal with the clergy and the
landed gentry.
➢ The Warden (1855)
➢ Barchester Tower (1857) : The most famous among the series that satirises the
Church of England.
➢ Doctor Thorne (1858).
➢ Framely Parsonage (1861)
➢ The Small House at Parsonage (1864)
➢ The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867)
• This series id followed by another series of novels called the Palliser novels, or
otherwise called Parliamentary novels.
• These series contain different genres of novels including family saga, bildungsroman,
picaresque, satire and parodies.
• The common thread for the series is the life of Plantagenet Palliser and his wife Lady
Glencora.
• The main theme of the novel is the British and Irish politics.
➢ Can You Forgive Her? : The first of the series the novel deals with theme of
the power of money and the ambitions it brings. It also detail a struggle
between the sexes by questioning the institution of marriage.
➢ Phineas Finn
➢ Phineas Redux
➢ The Prime Minister
➢ The Eustace Diamonds : The novel discusses how the aristocratic and upper
class life psychologically damage the people trapped in the so called elite
lifestyle. The love, emotion and care are all mimicked on their life only for the
sake of money and property.
➢ The Duke’s Children
• Orley Farm : It is a realistic novel published in 1862. It discusses the forgery done by
Lady Mason in her husband’s will to own the Orley Farm for her son Lucius.
• She later regrets her act because of the problems later ensuing as a result of her
fraudulency.
• The Way We Live Now : A satirical novel published in 1875. It is the longest of
Trollope’s novel with many subplots.
• The main inspiration for the novel is the financial scandal of 1870s which mocked the
greedy and dishonest upper class.
• Augustus Melmotte who considers himself a man of wealth and prestige in the city of
London gets himself into a railway business fraudulency resulting in his descend.
• Major characters : Augustus Melmotte, Felix, Marie Melmotte, Lady Matilda Carbury,
Georgina Longstaffe, Roger Carbury( mouthpiece of Trollope), etc.
VICTORIAN NON-FICTIONAL PROSE
• Like fictional prose, non-frictional prose of Victorian era gained equal popularity.
• The non-fiction writings of the period was also called sage writings and the writers
were called sage writers.
• The prose text mostly addressed the problems and issues concerned with the
mechanisation of the Victorian society and proposed possible solutions.
• The major focus of the writing was on immediate public concern regarding the
ensuing problems.
• There were different kinds of proses popular like diaries, letters, journals, biographies,
autobiographies, theology, histories, scientific publications, literary criticism, book
reviews, etc.
• Some of the major non fictional prose writers are
THOMAS CARLYLE.
• He was a Scottish historian, essayist, satirist, mathematician, translator and
philosopher.
• He was born on 4 December, 1795 in Ecclefechan, Scotland.
• He did his schooling from a village school in Ecclefechan.
• Later he studied at Annan Academy and Edinburgh University.
• He worked as a maths teacher in Annan Academy, which he abandoned to learn Law
at Edinburgh.
• There he struggled with spirituality which became the basis for the work Sartor
Resartus.
• In 1826, married Jane Welsh.
• In 1834, he moved to London and later to Chelsea where he became known as “Sage
of Chelsea” and became the member of a literary circle in which Leigh Hunt and John
Stuart Mill were also members.
• He was influenced by German Idealism. He wrote many essays on German literature.
• He even translated the work of Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship.
• He believed in Anglo-Saxonism and considered it be the dominant one. He was also
of the view that Jews must be expelled to Palestine.
• In 1865, he accepted the rectorship of Edinburgh University. He held an installation
speech which became popular due to its high moral exhortation. Later it was
published under the title, On the Choice of Books.
• He edited his wife’s letters under the title Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh
Carlyle, Prepared for Publication by Thomas Carlyle.
• He was died on 5 February, 1881 in London and was buried at Ecclefechan besides his
parents.
• Major Works
Sartor Resartus
• It was subtitled as The Tailor Re-tailored.
• His first major work, a satirical novel, it was rejected by many publishers until it was
published by Fraser’s Magazine from 1833 to 1834.
• It is a mixture of philosophy and romance.
• It is the story of a German philosopher of clothes, Diogenes Teufelsdrockh ( which
means God born Devil dung), and his spiritual journey.
• The novel is partly a biography by an Editor who provides the philosophical and
spiritual life of Teufelsdrockh.
• The novel provide an attack on the utilitarianism and commercialisation of English
society.
• The “Everlasting No and Yea” is an idea that became popular in the work.
• The “Everlasting No” represents the unbelief in God and “The Everlasting Yea”
represent the spirit of faith in God.
• In the novel, the narrator moves from this refusal of God to the embracing of it
through “The Centre of Indifference”(agnosticism).
The French Revolution : A History
• It was published in 1837 in three volumes which details the period of French
Revolution from 1789 to the Reign of Terror.
• The work was published after a lot of difficulties. The only draft of the work was
accidently burned by his friend and philosopher John Stuart Mill.
• In this work we can see Carlyle as a preacher than as an historian.
• The three volumes are titled as “The Bastille”, “The Constitution” and “The Guillotine”.
• This work was an inspiration for Charles Dickens in his novel A Tale of Two Cities.
• The work was written in the way a novel was written with shifting point of view and
imagery..

Chartism

• It was published in 1839.

• The phrase “Condition of England Question” was first used by Carlyle in thus
work.
• He detailed the condition of the urban poor with the advent of the materialistic
society.
• He presented Chartism as a symptom of a disease that affected England.
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History.
• Published by James Fraser in 1841,London, is a collection of six lectures about
prominent historical figures.
• It includes the importance to heroic leadership.
• It is through this work Carlyle proposed the Great Man theory, which states that
history should be studied in relation to the great men or heroes who were
influential and unique due to their natural attributes like intellect, heroic courage
or divine inspiration.
• He divides heroes into six:
➢ The hero as divinity : Odin, the type of Norsemen
➢ The hero as a prophet : Muhammed (PBUH) and the rise of Islam
➢ The hero as a poet : Dante and Shakespeare
➢ The hero as a priest : Luther for reformation.
➢ The hero as a man of letters : Ben Johnson, Rousseau
➢ The hero as king : Cromwell and Napoleon.
Past and Present
• Published in 1843, the work is a reaction against the economic crisis of early
1840s.
• It compares the religious medieval time and modern time of Victorian era.
• He was inspired by the work Chronicles of the Abbey of Saint Edmund’s Bury by
Jocelin of Brakelond
• Abbot Samson, a person who lived somewhere in the 12th century, considers
himself as the hero who gave stability to his era through his abilities and power.
Other works:
• Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches, with Elucidations (1849)
• “Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question” (1849)
• Latter -Day Pamphlets (1850)
• The Life of John Sterling. (1851)
• History of Friedrich ll of Prussia. (1858)
• Shooting Niagra: And After (1867)
• The Early Kings of Norway (1875)
• Reminiscences of my Irish Journey in 1849 (1882)
• Lectures on the History of Literature (1892)
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
• Born October 25, 1800, Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, England.
• He was an English Whig politician, essayist, poet and historan.
• He is famous for his work History of England
• His father Zachary Macaulay, governor of Sierra Leone and mother, a Quaker.
• He wrote a romantic narrative poem “The Battle of Cheviot” in the style of Sir
Walter Scott at the age of eight.
• He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge where he won the Chancellor’s Medal
for English verse twice.
• In 1825 his first essay on John Milton was published in The Edinburgh Review,
which gave him immediate fame
• Though he studied law, his family’s financial crisis forced him to take up a minor
government post.
• In 1830, he entered Parliament as member of Calne in Wiltshire.
• He was considered as a leading figure in an age of great orators.
• He became the member and later the secretary of Board of Control, administering
the East India Company
• He was in India for four years, after returning to England he returned to his
political life.
• He died December 28, 1859, Campden Hill, London.
• Most of his poems were written in his early years which was included in Lays of
Ancient Rome (1842), which are based on the legends of early Rome.
• Macaulay had written twenty two essays for the Edinburgh Review before going
to India and three while his stay at India.
• His essays are of two types, firstly, dealing with literary subjects and secondly, the
historical studies.
Major Prose Work:
The History of England
• The full title is The History of England from the Accession of James the Second
• It was published in 1848 in five volumes, which covers a 17 year period from 1685
to1702.
• It includes the reign of James ll, the Glorious Revolution, the coregency of William
lll and Mary ll and William lll’s death.
• The work is considered as one of the founder of the Whig interpretation of
history.
• The third chapter of the first volume is highly celebrated for its representation the
class, population, cities and tastes of English society in 1685
Other prose work
• Critical and History Essays
• “Social and Industrial Capacities of the Negroes”
• Machiavelli
• The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay
JAMES HENRY NEWMAN
• He was born on 21 February 1801, in the city of London.
• Newman was an English theologian, scholar and poet.
• He was first an Anglican and later a catholic priest and cardinal.
• He was canonised as a saint in the Catholic Church.
• He was a notable figure in Oxford Movement.
• Influential in the founding of Catholic University of Ireland.
• He was famous in literary circle through theological publications, poems, hymns,
novels, essays, lectures, sermons, translation, etc.
• He is the fifth saint of the City of London.
Major Works:
Apologia Pro Vita Sua
• Newman began the work as a religious autobiography in 1862 and published it
in bi-monthly parts.
• The book is a reaction against the attack of Charles Kingsley upon his moral
teachings, who asserted that, “Father Newman informs us that truth for its sake
need not be, and on the whole ought not to be, a virtue of the Roman clergy”.
• Edward Lowth Badeley encouraged Newman to publish Apologia as a robust
rebuttal.
• The work details his convictions that les him into Catholic Church.
• Only in the later part he dealt with Kingsley’s accusation and some were specified
in the appendix.
• Newman held the view that English Catholic priest are less trustworthy than the
Catholic layman.
Tract 90
• Otherwise known as Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thirty Nine Articles.
• It was a theological pamphlet published in 1841.
• It was one among the Tracts for the Time (a series of 90 theological publications,
produced by members of Oxford Movement) pamphlet which gained popularity
through controversies.
• It established that the fundamental ecclesiological identity was determined not by
Protestant but by Catholic.
Grammar of Assent
• The book details the ways in which one submit oneself in faith.
• Explored the elements of conversion.
• In this work he proposed his idea of Natural religion- our natural knowledge of
our duties to God.
JOHN STUART MILL
• Born on 20 May 1806, in London.
• Son of James Mill, who was mentored by his father into a political thinker
believing in the Utilitarian tradition.
• He did not restrict his study to Utilitarian principle alone, instead he studied Plato,
Aristotle, Herodotus, Thucydides, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Goethe and many
others.
• He was in close association with Bentham.
• He followed the idea of Bentham that “Happiness can be measured in terms of
pleasure and pain”.
• He wrote numerous books on Logic, Economics, Politics and Philosophy and
emancipation of women.
• He was a member of the Liberal Party and became the second member of the
Parliament who sought for women’s suffrage.
• He wrote the work The Subjection of Women which was the early feminist work.
• Major Works:
A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive (1843)
• The work discusses five principles of inductive reasoning, known as Mill’s
Methods
• It is a work that is important in the history of sciences and influenced many
scientists including Dirac.
Considerations on Representative Government (1861)
• In this work Mill considers representative government as an ideal government.
• He argues that parliament and other government bodies act as watchdogs whose
role is not to make legislation alone.
Utilitarianism (1863)
• The book was primarily published as a series of three articles in Fraser’s Magazine
in 1861.
• The intention of the book was to explain Utilitarianism as the best theory of ethics
and to defend it against to the accusations and misunderstandings.
• He took the idea from Jeremy Bentham who was considered as one among the
pioneers of Utilitarianism.
• Mill emphasised that happiness is the sole goal of ethical life.
• He explained this idea through “the principle of utility” or “the greatest happiness
principle”.
Subjection of Women (1969)
• The ideas in the work is jointly developed by Mill and his wife Harriet Taylor Mill.
• In his autobiography he shows his indebtedness to his wife and daughter for the
creation of the book.
• Mill argues for the equality of men and women which was against the
conventions of the status of men and women in the English society.
• He believed that everyone must be given equal right to vote as he believed that
moral and intellectual advancement of mankind result in happiness.
• His essay is very mush based utilitarian idea.
Three essays on Religion (1874)
• The subtitle of the book is Nature, the Utility of religion and Theism.
• It was published posthumously by his stepdaughter Helen Taylor, who wrote its
introduction.
• The book consists of three essays, “Nature”(1850), “Utility of Religion” (1868) and
“Theism”(1868-1870).
• The book is a critic on traditional religious views and argues for a “religion of
humanity”.
On Liberty (1859)
• A philosophical essay that becomes an extension to the system of utilitarianism.
• Individuality was considered the sole prerequisite for higher pleasure – the
ultimate good of utilitarianism.
• Mill proposed standards for the relationship between authority and liberty. They
are
➢ Three basic liberties of individuals
➢ Three legitimate objections to government intervention
 ➢ Two maxims on the relationship of individual to society.
• Mill’s wife Harriet Taylor Mill contributed ideas to the development of the book.
• Other works :
• Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy (1865)
• Admission of Women to Electoral Franchise (1867)
• England and Ireland (1868)
• Women Suffrage (1873)
• Dissertation and Discussion ( 1859)
• Thoughts on Parliamentary Reforms ( 1859)
• Consideration on Representative Government

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE

• Born April 23, 1818, Dartington, England
• Died October 20, 1894, Kingsbridge, England.
• English historian, biographer, novelist and essayist.
• Famous for his work History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the
Spanish Armada.
• He was dominated by his brother Richard Hurrel Froude, an advocate of the Oxford
Movement.
• He was greatly influenced by Henry Newman.
• The novel The Nemesis of Faith(1849), made him to break himself from the
movement and was forced to resign his fellowship at Exeter College as the novel was
an attack on the established church.
• Froude believed that 16th century was crucial in the English history due to the
struggle between Reformation and Roman Catholic Church.
• He also absorbed the doctrines of hero worship by Thomas Carlyle.
• Henry lll was Froude’s hero, who according to Froude was courageous and energetic
enough to guide the nation in its worst.
• Major works:
Fictions
• Shadows of the Clouds (1847)
• The Nemesis of Faith (1879)
• The Two Chiefs of Dunboy (1888)
Non-fiction
• History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth (1856 -
1870) in 12 volumes
• The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (1873)
• Caesar : A Sketch (1879) Biography of Julius Caesar
• Bunyan (1880) Biography of John Bunyan
• Luther: A Short Biography (1884) Biography of Martin Luther.
• Historical Essays (1886)
• The English in the West Indies or the Bow of Ulysses (1888)
• Life and Letters of Erasmus (1894)
• My Relations with Carlyle (1887) published in 1903.

JOHN RUSKIN

• Writer, art critic, draughtsman, water colourist, social thinker and philanthropist,
John Ruskin was born on February 8, 1819 in London.
• He was privately educated and later sent to Oxford.
• After leaving the university, he switched into a literary career.
• He gave prime importance to the aesthetic values and tastes of Victorian England.
• In 1869 he became the Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford.
• He died on January 20 in Brantwood, on Coniston Water, in the Lake District
• He was called as a “weirdo”, “ maniac depressive” and “strange and unbalanced
genius”
• John first wrote for an Architecture magazine which was published as The Poetry
of Architecture.
• Ruskin gained his popularity through the first volume of Modern Painters (1843)
• The Seven Lamps of Architecture, one of the major work of John Ruskin discussed
the medieval Gothic architecture and became an avid promoter of it.
• His work inspired architects including Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright and
Walter Gropius.
• He dealt with various subjects in his works including geology, architecture, myth,
ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy.
• He was a prolific writer publishing more than 50 books in wide variety of genres
like essays, treatises, poetry, lectures, travel guides, manuals, letters and even a
fairy tale.
• Ruskin believed in the idea of “truth to nature” which enabled the artist to portray
the nature truthfully instead of romanticizing. This notion led to the development
of the Arts and Crafts Movement.

Major Works
Modern Painters
• A five volume work published from 1843 to 1865.
• The first volume written in 1843 is an argument in the art of landscape were
modern painters emerging from the traditional picturesque dominated the old
masters.
• This work can be considered as a defense of the later work of JMW Turner.
• The work emphasises the truthful documentation of nature
• The second volume that came in 1846 gave importance to the symbolisms in art.
• In the fifth volume his father played an important role in its creation.
The Seven Lamps of Architecture
• An extended essay, published in 1849.
• The ‘lamps’ in the title stands for Ruskin’s principle of architecture.
• It contains 8 chapters with an introduction and each chapter for each seven
lamps.
 • The seven lamps are – Sacrifice, Truth, Power, Beauty, Life, Memory and
Obedience.
• Ruskin added to the popularity of the Gothic Revival through the work along with
AWN Pugin and others.
The Stones of Venice
• It was published from 1851 to 1853 in three volumes which were treatise on
Venetian art and architecture describing over 80 churches.
• Especially the architecture of Venice’s Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance periods.
• Through the work he exemplified the principles discussed in his early work The
Seven Lamps of Architecture.
The Two Paths (1859)
• A course of lectures published in 1859 which describes the radical conservative
temper and symbolic methid his later cultural criticism.
Unto This Last
• It is an essay and book on economy.
• It was first published in 1860 in Cornhill Magazine in four articles.
• The work was violently crticized.
• It influenced the nonviolent activist Mahatma Gandhi.
• The title 9f the work is taken from the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard.
• The essay attacks the effect of Industrialism on the society. He is considered a s
the precursor of social economy.
• Other works :
➢ Munera Pulveris
➢ Sesame and Lilies
➢ The Crown of Wild Olive
➢ Proeterita

WALTER PATER

• Critic, essayist, poet, humanist and aesthete.

• He studied Greek Philosophy at Oxford University.
• Major figure in the Aesthetic movement.
• Famous for the idea of Art for Art’s Sake. He focussed on the pleasurable effect of art
which become a major core of his first book, Studies in the History of Renaissance.
• He was a follower of Longinus.
• His major role was to interpret renaissance to his generation through novels, stories
and essays.
• His style is od perfecting the prose with elaborate and exquisite phrases without
neglecting its subject matter.
• His criticisms were never based on any principles, therefore it lacked accuracy.
• Pater influenced later literary generation of Oscar Wilde, George Moor and other
aesthetes of the 1890s
Major works
• Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873)
• A collection of essays on Leonardo da Vinci, Sandra Botticelli, Pico della Mirandola,
Michelangelo and others.
• The work is a sensitive appreciation of the art during renaissance.
• In the essay Pater asserted the idea of Art for Art’s sake and that it never
acknowledges the morality or utilitarian principles.
• Marius the Epicurean (1885)
• Subtitles as his sensations and ideas.
• A historical and philosophical novel set in 161 to 177 AD in the Rome of the
Antonines.
• The novel written in a third person narrative details the intellectual life of the
protagonist Marius, who is in a quest for a congenial religion or philosophy.
• Imaginary Portraits (1887)
• Appreciations (1889)
• Plato and Platonism (1893)
• Greek Studies (1895)
• Miscellaneous Studies (1895)
• Essays from the Guardian (1896)

VICTORIAN POETRY
• Victorian poetry is seen as a bridge between romantic poetry and modernist poetry.
• Novel was the dominant literary form during the era. But poetry enjoyed a cultural
status.
• Victorian poetry was quite different from the poetry of romantic era, yet there are
some features that are common to both like, questioning the established rule of
church, myths and mysteries, and scepticism.
• The major features Victorian poetry were:
• The poetry of the period was realistic in nature and they were less idealized like
romantic era. They lived in the world of their day.
• The poems of this period were mainly on the upper middle class life, using their
language and themes. The poems were written for them as well.
• Reflects the complex tendencies of age like social, political and religious.
• Pessimism : Victorians were more concerned about reality. Therefore their main focus
was on the pains and sufferings of people in the Victorian period.
• Advancement in Science and technology were expressed in the poetry which helped
the readers to believe the importance of science in the betterment of life.
• This period was more sceptical towards the existence of God, especially after the
publication of Origin of Species. Moreover corruption in the church, morality of
priest, etc., led to question the authenticity of religious institution.
• The poems of this period acted as a source of social reform with a sense of
responsibility.
• They also emphasised the moral conventions of the Victorian period.
• Favoured medieval myths and folklores.
 • This era used sensory images to describe the chaos of the English society.
• Dramatic Monologue became one of the prominent genre during the era. It is the
idea of creating a lyric poem in the voice of a speaker ironically distinct from the
poet.
• Literary movements that influenced Victorian poetry
❖ Oxford Movement :
❖ Also called Tractarian Movement after its series of publication the Tracts for
the Times
❖ It was a High Church movement which developed into Anglo-Catholicism.
❖ It was more of religious than literary.
❖ It inspired the poetry of Pre-Raphaelites.
❖ It influenced the poetries if Rossetti, GM Hopkins, etc.
❖ Aesthetic Movement
❖ Aesthetes passionately believed the role of art in the fulfilment of important
ethical roles.
❖ Aesthetes believed that there is no room for morality in art as they believed it
is simply pursuit for beauty and tastes.
❖ “Art for Art’s Sake” became the motto of the movement.
❖ Oscar Wilde was a leader of the movement.
❖ This movement gave way to the Decadent movement of 1890s, as it reflected
the decay of Victorian values.
❖ Pre-Raphaelite Movement:
❖ The movement was established in 1848 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Sir John
Everett Millais and William Hollman Hunt.
❖ It was a group of 19th century English painters, poets and critics who reacted
against the strict Victorian materialism.
❖ They were influenced by medieval and early Renaissance painters up to the
time of the Italian painter Raphael.
• Science, technology and religion were colliding against each other. Due to the
multiple conflicts ongoing Victorian poetry is divided as
❖ The High Victorian poetry - Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning,
Elizabeth Barret Browning, Mathew Arnold, GM Hopkins
❖ The Pre-Raphaelites Poetry – Dante Gabriel Rossetti, A. Charles Swinburne,
William Morris

ALFRED LORD TENNYSON

• Born on 6 August 1809 in England into a middle class line having a royal and noble
ancestry.
• Through out his family, epilepsy and mental bouts ran.
• After his basic education he was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge University in
1827.
• There he joined a secret society called Cambridge Apostles..
• In 1829 he received Chancellor’s Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first piece of
poem, Timbuctoo.
• He published his first collection of poems, Poems Chiefly Lyrical in 1830 in which
appears two of his famous poems “Caribel” and “Mariana”.
• He succeeded William Wordsworth as the poet laureate in 1850 and served for 42
years.
• He was highly praised by Queen Victoria and she even compared his poems to the
Bible.
• His early poetry with its Medievalism and powerful imagery became an influence on
Pre-Raphaelites.
• His poems were famous for is new metrical variety, rich and descriptive imagery and
exquisite verbal melodies.
• The poems Tennyson reflected the Victorian generation as well as his own life.
• He died on October 6, 1892 and was buried in the Poet’s Corner in Westminster
Abbey.
• At his funeral his poem “Crossing the Bar” was read.
• He write short lyrics like “Break, Hreak Break”, “ThecCharge of the Little Brigade”,
“Tears, Idle Tears” and “Crossing the Bar”
• Some where based on classical mythologies like “Ulysses”.
• “In Memoriam A.H.H”, was a poem by Tennyson to commemorate the death of his
friend Arthur Hallam, a fellow student and poet from Trinity College.
• Famous Poems:
• “Mariana”
• Published in 1830, included in the early collection of poem called Poems, Chiefly
Lyrical.
• The poem is about a woman who continuously laments in her lack of connection with
the society.
• The premise for the poem is taken from Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure.
• The poem is written in the form of a dramatic monologue, but is more accurately a
lyrical narrative.
• “No More”, “Anacreontics” and “ Fragment”
• Three poems contributed to the annual, The Gem: A Literary Annual.
• “Sonnet”
• First published in The English Magazine in 1831, later included in Friendship’s
Offering in 1833.
• “Lady Clara Vere de Vere”:
• It is a part of his collected Poems published in 1842.
• The poem is about a lady in a family of aristocrats.
• “Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood”- thus line
gave title to the film Kind Hearts and Coronets.
• Lewis Carroll’s “Echoes” is based on this poem.
• “The Lotus-Eaters”
• The title and the concept is derived from Homer’s The Odyssey.
• The poem is inspired by his travel to Spain along with Arthur Hallam, where they
visited Pyrenees mountains.
• The poem describes the mariners who after eating the lotos are put into an altered
s5ate and isolated from the outside world.
• “The Lady Shallots”
• It is a lyrical ballad, inspired by a 13th century short prose Donna du Scalotta.
• The poem is about the tragic story of Elaine of Astolat.
• The poem inspired the Pre-Raphaelites.
• The poem recasts the Arthurian subject.
• It was included in the 1842 collection.
• The poem has two version – 20 stanza in 1833 and 19 stanza in 1842. (in order to fit
the Victorian morals)
• “The Lover’s Tale (1833)
• “Break, Break, Break”:
• Written in 1835 and published in 1842.
• The poem is an elegy in the death of Arthur Henry Hallam and his feelings of
isolation while at Mablethorpe, Lincolnshire.
• “Ulysses”
• Written in 1833 and published in 1842.
• It is a poem in blank verse and a popular exanple in dramatic monologue.
• The poem is about the mythical hero Ulysses who is discontent with wasting his time
in his Kingdom of Ithaca, who yearns to explore again.
• “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”, oft quoted line from the poem.
• Ulysses leaves his wife Penelope and son Telemachus to explore the world.
• “The Princess”, “Godiva”, “Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal”(later appeared as a
song in the film Vanity Fair), “Tears, Idle Tears” – Included in the collection The
Princess ; A Medley
• “In Memoriam A.H.H”:
• It is published in 1850 which is a requiem for Arthur Henry Hallam, who was poet’s
beloved from Trinity College.
• The first title of poem was “IN MEMORIAM A.H.H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXlll, which was
published anonymously.
• It is a lengthy poem with 2916 lines.
• The poem gas a prologue and an epilogue and is divided into 131 sections.
• The epilogue is a marriage song of Tennyson’s sister.
• It is written in 4 line stanzas of iambic tetrameter with ABBA rhyme scheme, which is
now commonly known as Memoriam Stanza.
• “Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all” – oft quoted line
from the poem taken from canto 27, referring to the death of his friend.
• “Maud”:
• Published in Maud and Other Poems, the first published collection after becoming
poet laureate.
• “Idylls of the King”
• This is a cycle of 12 narrative poems, Published between 1859 and 1885.
• The poem retells the legend of King Arthur, his knights, his love, betrayal and his rise
and fall.
• The poem recounts King Arthur’s effort to uplift the life of his Kingdom until his
death at the hands of the traitor Modred.
• Each poems in it details the acts of various knights including Lancelot, Geraint,
Galahad, Merlin, Lady of the Lake, etc.
• The poems were dedicated to Albert, Prince Consort.
• The poems were written in blank verse and is often read as an allegory of the societal
conflicts of Britain.
• “Enoch Arden”
• The story for the poem was given by Thomas Woolner.
• This is a narrative poem published in 1864.
• The title is taken from a principle in law that a person being missing for more than
seven years will be declared dead.
• The hero Enoch Arden was a fisherman turned merchant sailor.
• “Tithonus”
• It was first written in 1833 as “Tithon” and completed in 1859.
• The poem is a dramatic monologue in which Tithonus, faced with old age, yearns for
his death as he was weary of his immortality.
• Tithonus addressed his consort Eos, the goddess of dawn
• It is written in blank verse
• “Locksley Hall”
• “The Two Voices”
• “Ring Out, Wild Bells”
• “The Eagle”
• “The Charge of the Light Brigade”
• “Crossing the Bar”
• Queen Mary(1875), Harold(1876) and Becket (1884) – Plays

ROBERT BROWNING
• An English poet, playwright who was famous for dramatic monologue.
• Born in 7 May, 1812 in Camberwell, England.
• He was educated semi privately.
• He started writing poems at the age of 12.
• Shelley and Byron influenced him in his literary career.
• Until the age of 34, he stayed home and his poems were financed by his father.
• He travelled to Russia in 1833, after which he lived in London, where he became
acquainted with some of the major figures of literary and theatrical world.
• In 1834, he visited Italy, looking background for his long poem in blank verse,
Sordello, which is an imaginary biography of Mantaun bard spoken of by Dante in
the Divine Comedy.
• In 1845 he met Elizabeth Barrett, poetess with whom he had strong likening resulting
in their secret marriage and elopement.
• They lived in Italy until the death of Elizabeth in 1861 at Florence, leaving only one
son.
• In 1882 Oxford conferred upon him the degree of D.C.L.
• He died in Italy in the year 1889 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
• Themes of his poems
❖ Philosophical, which was his central focus through which he tried to explain
life as a struggle to achieve something beyond our reach, God
❖ Love poems have a calm authenticity of tone.
❖ Primary concern was human soul.
• Major Poems:
• Pauline (1833)
• Subtitle A Fragment of a Confession.
• Written in 1832 and published anonymously in 1833.
• An introspective poem, strongly influenced by Shelley is the confession of an
unnamed poet to his eponymous lover.
• Paracelsus (1835)
• Written in blank verse, which tells the story of a heroes unquenchable thirst for
beyond man’s grasp.
• It is an epic written in five parts – “Paracelsus Aspires”, “Paracelsus Attains”,
“Paracelsus”, “Paracelsus Aspires” and “Paracelsus Attains”.
• Strafford
• A play written in 1837, produced by Macready.
• Sordello (1840)
• It is a narrative poem which tells the story of Sordello da Goito (Mantaun), a 13th
century Lombard troubadour depicted in Canto Vl of Dante’s Purgatorio.
• Bells and Pomegranates (1846)
❖ Pippa Passes : It is a verse drama which is the first volume of Bells and
Pomegranates.
❖ King Victor and King Charles : it is the second play by Browning published
as second volume of Bells and Pomegranates.
• Dramatic Lyrics (1842)
• It is the third volume of the series Bells and Pomegranates.
• Some of the important poems in the book
❖ “Porphyria’s Lover”
❖ First published in 1836 in the issue of Monthly Repository.
❖ Browning’s first dramatic monologue and first to explore abnormal
psychology.
❖ In the poem a man strangles his lover Porphyria and speaks of the feeling of
happiness the murder gives him.
❖ “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister”
❖ It is a soliloquy written in the voice of an unnamed monk.
 ❖ The poem consists of nine 8 line stanzas written in trochaic tetrameter.
❖ It tells about the speaker’s hatred for a fellow monk called “Brother Lawrence”.
❖ “My Last Duchess”
❖ A dramatic monologue consisting of 28 rhyming couplets of iambic
pentameter.
❖ In the first publication it was entitled as “In Italy”.
❖ The poem is preceded by an epigraph, “Ferrara”, from which we get an idea
that the speaker is Alfonso ll, the fifth Duke of Ferrera and his wife is Lucrezia.
❖ Set in the Italian Renaissance.
❖ In the poem Duke discusses about the portrait of his late wife to an envoy
from the count whose daughter he plans to marry.
❖ “Pied Piper of Hamelin”
❖ It is also known as “Pan Piper” or “Rat catcher of Hamelin”.
❖ The title character is a legend from Hamelin, , who came to the town to
exterminate the rats with his magic pipe.
❖ As the city refused to pay him, he took revenge by taking the children of town
and killing them.
❖ In different versions, the poem has different ending.
❖ “Count Gismond”
❖ In Dramatic Lyric the poem was titled as “France”.
❖ It is a dramatic monologue in 21 verses.
❖ In the poem a woman relates an event of her life, where a man tried to
dishonour her.
❖ There are different readings to the poem, in one, the story is seen as a
vindication of innocence and in another reading the speaker is considered
unreliable.
• Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845)
• This is the 7th volume of Bells and Pomegranate.
• Poems in the collection
❖ “The Laboratory”
❖ A dramatic monologue set in 17th century France.
❖ The speaker is a woman speaking to an apothecary as he prepares poison for
her to kill her rivals in love.
❖ “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix”
❖ “The Lost Leader”
❖ “Home Thoughts from Abroad”
❖ “Meeting at Night”
• Men and Women (1855)
• It is a collection of 51 poems in 2 volumes.
• It contains the best of Browning poems.
• First fifty Poems are monologues spoken by different narrators and take a wide
range of historical, religious and European situations, while the fifty one – “One Word
More”, features Browning himself as the narrator.
• The title is taken from Elizabeth’s Sonnets from Portuguese.
• Some of the poems in the collection
❖ “Love Among the Ruins”
❖ First in the collection.
❖ The theme of the poem is a comparison between love and material glory.
❖ In the poem the speaker begins by musing over the glory of the city and
thinking of how he will greet his beloved, rejects the majesty of the old city by
the closing of the poem and prefers instead his love.
❖ “Evelyn Hope”
❖ “Fra Lippo Lippi”
❖ A dramatic monologue which depicts a 15th century real life painter, Filippo
Lippi who was a monk commissioned by church to paint for them.
❖ The poem questions whether art is true to life or idealize life.
❖ It is written in blank verse, non rhyming iambic pentameter.
❖ The poem also is about Church’s influence on art.
❖ The poem explores the conflict between the Monk’s artistic talent and the
Church’s expectations.
❖ “A Toccata of Galuppi’s”
❖ The title suggests that the speaker is either playing or listening to a Toccata
by 18th century Venetian composer Baldassare Galuppi.
❖ The poem is written in the form of fifteen rhymed tercets in trochaic
octameter catalectic.
❖ “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”
❖ A narrative poem in which the speaker Childe Roland described his journey
towards “ the Dark Tower” and his horror at what he sees in his quest.
❖ The title is taken from the last lines of Shakespeare’s play King Lear.
❖ The poem contains 34 six line stanzas with a rhyme scheme ABBAAB in iambic
pentameter.
❖ “Andrea del Sarto”
❖ It is also called “The Faultless Painter”.
❖ It is a dramatic monologue in blank verse.
❖ The poem was inspired by Andrea del Sarto, a renaissance artist.
❖ He was a pupil of Piero di Cosimo and was influenced by Raphael, Leonardo
Da Vinci and Fra’ Bartolommeo.
❖ The poem is based on the biographical material by Giorgio Vasari.
❖ Andrea del Sarto worked in the court of French King Francis l. He marries
Lucrezia who was a widow. But she was not faithful to him.
❖ The poem is a conversation by Andrea to Lucrezia who wants to leave him
forever.
❖ “In a Balcony”
❖ It is one act play
• Dramatis Personae
• Poetry collection published in 1864.
• Written when he returned to London after Elizabeth’s death.
• Some of the poems in this collection are
❖ “James Lee’s Wife”
❖ “Abt Vogler”
❖ “Rabbi Ben Ezra”: A poem about Abraham ibn Ezra, one of the greatest
poets, mathematician and scholar of 12 th century.
❖ “Caliban upon Setebos” : It deals with Caliban of Shakespeare’s Tempest and
his reflection on Setebos.
❖ “Deaf and Dumb”
❖ Mr. Sludge “The Medium”
• The Ring and the Book
• It is a verse novel of 21,000 lines.
• Published in four volumes from 1868-1869 by Smith, Elder&Co.
• It tells the story of a murder trial in Rome in 1698.
• The poem consists of 12 books, out of which ten are dramatic monologue by
different characters, and the first and last book were spoken by the author.
• Asolando (1889)

ELIZABETH BARRET BROWNING(1806-1861)

• Daughter of a West Indian planter, born on 1806, at Durham.
• She began her career as a poetess in a very young age.
• Her first publication was An Essay on Mind; with Other Poems in 1826.
• At the age of 30, her health prostrated her, making invalid till her death.
• In 1846 married Robert Browning, lived in Italy making Florence their headquarters.
• After her first work she took a literary break of nine years and published her famous
work Prometheus Bound in 1833.
• Mrs. Browning is a failure in narrative poetry as she has many slips of taste and that’s
why ROSSETTI called her “falsetto masculinity”.
• Major Poems:
• The Battle of Marathon: A Poem
• A dramatic narrative which retells the Battle of Marathon.
• The poem is written in heroic couplet that is in iambic pentameter rhymed
AABBCCDD...
• Prometheus Bound
• The Seraphim and Other (1838)
• Sonnets from the Portuguese (1847)
• It is a collection of 44 sonnets.
• She is best known for this collection of love poems for her husband Robert Browning
who called her ‘my little Portuguese'
• Most famous poems of the collection are number 33 and 43.
❖ Number 33 : “ Yes, call me by my pet name!”
❖ Number 43: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”
❖ This is the sonnet that is dedicated to Robert Browning.
 ❖ It describes her love for her beloved.
❖ Number 14 : “If thou must love me, let it be for nought”
• Casa Guidi Windows (1851)
• Aurora Leigh (1857)
• An epic poem written in blank verse.
• It consists of nine books.
• First person narration from the point of view of Aurora.
• Set in Florence, Malvern, London and Paris.
• She referred the poem as “ novel in verse”, which according to her “the most mature
of my works, and the one into which my highest convictions upon Life and Art have
entered”.
• Upto Book 5, Aurora narrates her past from childhood to the age of 27
• Book 6 to 9 reports the event in diary form.
• Last Poems (1862)
• The Cry of the Children(1841)
• The poem discusses children’s manual labour and their exploitation.
• Published in Blackwood’s Magazine.
• 13 Stanza poem.
• She uses a young lamb to represent the young children symbolising innocence.
• A Musical Instrument (1860)
• It was published posthumously in a collection called Poems Before Congress.
• It describes the mythical story of God Pan and the Syrinx

MATHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888)

• British poet and cultural critic.
• Son of Thomas Arnold headmaster of Rugby School.
• He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford where he gained the Newdigate Prize for
poetry.
• He worked as an inspector of school.
• He was characterized as a sage writer as he chastises the reader on the evils of
society.
• Arnold was Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1857.
• Arnold is a crucial figure in the poet critics of English Literature where he evaluated
Romantic poets like Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley and Keats.
• He invented the touchstone method to evaluate poetry.
• Major Poems
• The Strayed Reveller, and Other Poems (1849)
• Collection appeared under the name ‘A’.
• Important poem of the collection is
❖ “The Strayed Reveller”
❖ A lyric poem in irregular meter.
• Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems (1852)
• The second collection of poem by Mathew Arnold which has the famous title poem.
• It was published anonymously by ‘A’.
❖ “Empedocles on Etna”
❖ It is a verse drama.
❖ It is based on legends concerning the death of Greek philosopher and
statesman Empedocles.
❖ He is portrayed as a man who no longer can enjoy and considers himself
useless and decide to commit suicide by leaping into the crater of Mount
Etna.
❖ Empedocles believed that human life was created from four elements – water,
fire, earth and air.
❖ He believed in carpe dium philosophy.
❖ “Isolation: To Marguerite”
❖ “To Marguerite : Continued”
❖ It is a sequel to “Isolation: To Marguerite”
❖ The poem discusses the theme of companionship and solidarity with our
fellow humans.
❖ “Tristram and Iseult”
❖ A narrative poem the legends of Tristram and Iseult.
❖ The poem is about Tristram’s monologue as he is in his death bed regretting.
❖ Iseult of Brittany’s role as a dutiful wife and mother is another theme that
comes in the poem.
• Poems (1853)
❖ “Sohrab and Rustum: An Episode”
❖ It is a narrative poem by Arnold having a string tragic themes.
❖ The poem retells the story of the great warrior Rustum who killed long lost
son Sohrab, unknowingly.
❖ The story is a famous episode from Ferdowsi’s Persian epic Shahnameh.
❖ In this poem he used Homer’s style.
❖ It consists of 892 lines of blank verse.
❖ “The Scholar Gypsy”(1853)
❖ It is a poem based on a 17th century Oxford story found in Joseph Glanvill’s
The Vanity of Dogmatizing.
❖ It tells the story of an impoverished Oxford student who left his studies to join
a band of gipsies who taught him their traditional kind of secrets.
❖ The poem begins by an invocation to the shepherd like a pastoral elegy.
❖ The poem first appeared in Poems (1853)
• New Poems (1867)
❖ “Thyrsis”(1865)
❖ It is an elegiac poem written to commemorate his friend, Arthur Hugh Clough,
who died in 1861.
❖ Thyrsis was a shepherd in Virgil’s Seventh Eclogue.
❖ It was first published in 1865 and later included in New Poems in 1867.
❖ It consists of 24 ten line stanzas.
 ❖ Arnold portrays Clough as Thyrsis.
❖ The poem can be considered as a sequel to The Scholar Gypsy.
❖ Dover Beach
❖ A lyric poem sometimes even considered as an elegy lamenting the world’s
loss of religious faith, during a time of progress in science and industry.
❖ The poem has a melancholic tone.
❖ It is written in free verse with four stanzas.
❖ The sea in the poem is used as an image and metaphor.
❖ The poem mainly discusses the conflict between faith and faithlessness.
❖ He presents a pessimistic view of life in the poem.
❖ In the poem he alludes to Sophocles famous tragedy, “Antigone”.
• Balder Dead
• Published in 1855 is a poem drawn upon Norse mythology with a powerful tragic
theme.
• It retells the story of the murder of Odin’s son Balder as a result of Loki, blood
brother to Odin.
• Prose works:
• Essays in Criticism (1865-1889)
• Culture and Anarchy (1869)
• Literature and Dogma (1873)

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

• An English Painter and poet of passionate imagination.
• Born in London on May 12,1828.
• Son of an Italian refugee received his early education from King’s College where his
father was an Italian Professor.
• He was the co-founder of Pre-Raphaelite movement.
• He married Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, the feminine ideal of Pre-Raphaelites and his
image for number of paintings.
• His early works were accused as “overly sensual”.
• He died of depression and Bright’s disease and was buried in Kent in England.
• Poems (1870)
• Ballads and Sonnets (1881)
• This is a collection of new and expanded edition of his 1870 Poems.
• It consists of 100 sonnets and forms two parts – Part l Youth and Change and Part ll
Change and Fate.
• Later on in the new edition it was called as The House of Life.
• The House of Life
• It is a sonnet sequence consisting of 100 sonnets.
• It describes narrator’s relationship with two women.
• One the wife, based on poet’s wife Elizabeth Siddal and the woman in the affair
based on poet’s mistress Jane Morris.
• Youth and Change -Sonnets 1 to 59
• Change and Fate – Sonnets 60 to 101
• Ballads and Narrative Poems
• Sonnets and Lyrical Poems
• My Sister’s Sleep
• Included in the first volume of Germ.
• It tells the story of young girl in her death bed where her mother and brother wait
around .
• The narrator is the brother who describes the sad situation in the small house.
• He uses religious terms and symbols in the poem.
• The Bride’s Prelude
• It was originally called”Bride Chamber Talk
• It is an unfinished poem. Only Part l was published in Rossetti’s lifetime.
• It is included in the 1881 edition of Ballads and Sonnets.
• It describes the conversation between two sisters, Aloyse who is about to be married
and the younger Amelotte, who is acting as bridesmaid
• “Jenny”
• It is for most part a dramatic monologue about a prostitute.
• The speaker is a wealthy unmarried man.
• The poem has undergone extensive revision.
• The major theme of the poem is that of female purity.
• Dante at Verona
• Eden Bower
• Troy Town
• The White ship : historical ballad
• The King’s Tragedy : historical ballad
• Rose Mary
• “The Last Confession”
• A dramatic monologue set against the backdrop of the Italian Risorgimento
• The speaker of the poem describes how he killed his unfaithful beloved and his guilt
in his action as he is about to die.
• Hand and Soul- allegorical prose tale
• It tells the story of 13th century Italian painter, Chiari dell’ Erma.
• “The Blessed Damozel”
• The best known poem of Rossetti published in 1850 in the Pre-Raphaelite journal The
Germ.
• It is influenced by Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven”
• The poem describes the Damozel observing her lover from heaven and her unfulfilled
yearning for reunion with him.
• The poem is paired with a painting of the same title.
• “ A Sea Spell” (1869)
• It is a sonnet which is accompanied by an oil painting.
• “Prosperina”
• The poem is an inscription by Rossetti on his oil painting called “Prosperine”.
• It is an Italian sonnet.
• It is a poem of longing carrying an allusion to his yearning to seduce Jane Morris, his
model for painting after his wife’s death.
• Prosperine had been imprisoned in Pluto’s underground realm for tasting the
forbidden pomegranate.
• Sir Hugh the Heron: A Legendary Tale in Four Parts (1843)

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
• An English poet who is the sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
• Due to her I’ll health, she was educated privately.
• She began writing poems in a very young age.
• Most of her poems were for children.
• She wrote her earlier works under the pseudonym Ellen Alleyne.
• She was a High Church Anglican and she was forced to break her marriage with the
painter James Collinson due to her religious differences.
• She rejected her brother’s Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
• Her poems are a mixture of religious and sensual imagery.
• Her poems create a critical appraisal of Victorian gender roles.
• Famous for her poems “Goblin Market” and “Remember”.
• She wrote the words for two Christmas Carol “In the Bleak Midwinter” and “Love
Came Down at Christmas”.
• Major works:
• Goblin Market and Other Poems
• First volume of poetry published in 1862 by Macmillan.
• Dante Rossetti designed the front piece and title page of the first edition.
❖ “Goblin Market”
❖ Written in 1859 and published in 1862.
❖ A narrative poem which tells the story of Laura and Lizzie who are tempted by
the fruit of Goblin merchant.
❖ It describes the adventures of two sisters with the Goblins river.
❖ The poem overtly deals with feminine sexuality and its relation to the
Victorian morals.
❖ “Remember”
❖ A poem of mourning and remembrance.
❖ The poet requests that the addressee of the poem remember her after she
died.
❖ It is a Petrarchan sonnet.
❖ “Up – hill”
❖ The poem discusses the tale of the narrator who asks her guide eight
questions in their journey.
❖ It can be considered as a devotional writing.
❖ It consists of 4 stanzas of four line each.
❖ It is an allegory of life and death.
 ❖ The major theme of the poem is that the upward progression of the soul is
not a simple and easy process. It can weigh down humans into one of
struggle instead of joy.
❖ “When I am dead, my dearest’, if you prefer”
❖ Written in 1848 but only published in 1862.
❖ The poem’s theme is a variation of Donne’s “A Valediction; Forbidding
Mourning”.
❖ It is a complimentary poem of her sonnet “Remember”
❖ “The Convent Threshold”
❖ The poem is about the struggle between the narrator’s doubt and beliefs.
❖ “Maude Clare”
❖ It is a ballad composed of a dozen four line stanzas.
❖ The poem consists of dialogues between the characters.
❖ “In the Round Tower at Jhansi, 8 June 1857”
❖ The poem describes a British army officer who kills himself and his wife
fearing the death at the rebellion of Jhokhan Bagh massacre at Jhansi.
• The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems
• Second volume published in 1866 by Macmillan.
• The front piece illustration is done by Dante Gabriel Rossetti which depicts the grief
stricken Prince of “The Prince’s Progress”
• 1866 edition contains 46 poems.
• Poems in the collection are:
❖ “The Prince’s Progress”
❖ Second lengthy poem after “Goblin Market”.
❖ The poem is about a Princess waiting for the return of her Prince.
❖ When the prince actually returned princess has already died.
❖ “Maiden Song”
❖ “Echo”
❖ The poem is about a lost love and how she yearn for her lover to eturn
through the image of an echo.
• A Pageant (1881)
• Fourth collection.
• The Face of the Deep (1882)

WILLIAM MORRIS (1834-1896)

• An English poet, painter, weaver, calligrapher, etc.

• He was educated from Marlborough and Exeter College, Oxford.
• He contributed mainly to the revival British textile arts.
• He was a follower of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood also followed English Arts and Crafts
Movement.
• Morris alongwith his friend Philip Webb designed the Red House. In Kent where he lived
from 1859 to1865.
• The Defence of Guinevere and Other Poems (1858)
• It was his first published work.
• Dark poems, set in a sombre world of violence.
❖ “The Haystack in the Floods”
❖ Narrative .
❖ Consists of 160 lines
❖ It is set during the Hundred Years’ War in France.
❖ A sequel to the poem was written by Amelia Josephine Burr under the title
“Jehane”
• Life and Death of Jason (1867)
• It is the longest ever written poem on Jason
• It cast the medieval and Greek culture.
• A heroic poem
• A melancholic tone.
• The Earthly Paradise
• It is an epic poem which retells various myths and legends from Greece and Scandinavia.
• This poem established his reputation as a poet.
• It is divided into 12 sections, each section representing the month of the year
• His subsequent works were published as “by the author of Earthly Paradise”
• Morris uses a frame story of a group of wanderers searching for a land of everlasting life.
• The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs (1877)
• A long narrative epic poem with more than 10,000 lines
• Based on Norse Saga which tells the story of the Norse hero Sigmund, his son Sigurd
and Sigurd’s wife.
• Poems by the Way
• “Masters in This Hall” : A Christmas Carol
• Dream of John Ball (1888) : A novel
• It is about the Revolt of 1381 ( the Peasants ‘Revolt)
• News from Nowhere (1890) : A novel
• Combination of Utopian socialism and soft science fiction.
• The Well at the World’s End (1896)
• Fantasy novel
• The Sundering Flood

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURN

• English poet, playwright, novelist and critic.
• Born on 5April 1837, in London.
• He was nervous and frail during his young age.
• He attended Eton College and Baillol College, Oxford.
• He wrote about many taboo topics such as Lesbianism, cannibalism, sadomasochism and
anti theism.
• After leaving London, he became a full time writer.
• He was an alcoholic and also he experienced from fits of nervous breakdown which
resulted in his collapse in 1879.
• His friend Theodore Watts-Dunton rescued and restored his health.
• Under Watt’s guardianship and encouragement, Swinburne devoted himself to writing.

• Atalanta in Calydon (1865)

• It gave him the first literary success.
• It is a verse drama.
• It recreate the spirit of Greek Tragedy in English.
• Poems and Ballads, First Series (1866)
• It contains the poets’ connection with masochism, flagellation and paganism.
• This collection marked the image of the poet as an artist and as an individual because he
explicitly used the pathological sexual themes which shocked the community.
• It has some common elements such as Ocean, Time and Death.
• It alludes to several historical personalities like Sappho, Anactoria, Jesus and Catullus.
❖ “Dolores”
❖ The subtitle of the poem is “Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs” or “Our Lady of
Pain”.
❖ First poem published in the collection.
❖ “The Triumph of Time”
❖ The poem is in Ottava Rima fully elaborate with the use of alliteration.
❖ The theme of the poem is rejected love.
❖ “Anactoria”
❖ This is the name of a woman mentioned by Sappho as a lover.
❖ In this poem Swinburne used Sappho addresses Anactoria where he uses
sadomasochism, cannibalism, etc.
❖ “Hymn to Prosperine”
❖ It is addressed to the Goddess Prosperine.
❖ The poem is about a lament on the decline of pagan goddess and her
pantheon with the rise of Christianity.
❖ The epigraph of the poem is “You have conquered, O Galilean”.
❖ “The Garden of Prosperine”
❖ A poem with 12 stanzas with 8 lines.
❖ The poem deals with the role of Prosperine as the goddess of death and
eternal sleep.
• Songs Before Sunrise (1871)
• It deals with political liberty and expresses his influence on the Italian patriot, Giuseppe
Mazzini whom he met during 1867.
• Erechtheus (1876)
• Poems and Ballads, Second Series(1878)
• It is less hectic and sensual than the first.
❖ A Forsaken Garden”
❖ The poem is about an unnamed man pondering the existence of a long forgotten
garden by the sea.
❖ He parodies the Christian religion, thereby making a humanist statement.
❖ He exhibits God as an entity of Time.
• Song of Italy (1867)
• The Queen-Mother and Rosamond (1860)
• Includes to verse dramas
• Chastelard (1865), Bothwell (1874) Mary Stuart (1881) : Three plays on the subject of
Mary Queen of Scots.
• Tristram of Lyonesse (1882)
• It is a long poem.
• Marino Faliero (1885)
• “A match”
• A poem of six stanzas with diverse metaphors which accentuate the intensity of love
dealt in the poem.
• “Faustine”
• The poem is about a dead woman who still exerts her influence on the male imagination.
• Her name is Faustine , a Roman Empress who is famous for her deadly beauty, her
murders and adulteries.