Table of the most popular authors and books from this time period
Survey form of your favorite authors and books
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British Authors
American Authors
European Authors
British Authors
The Dickens Collection
The published works of Charles Dickens span over 30 years of the Victorian period, from The Pickwick Papers in 1836 to his death in 1870 with the unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Other works of Dickens include:
- Oliver Twist, 1837
- Nicholas Nickleby, 1838
- David Copperfield, 1849
- A Tale of Two Cities, 1859
- Great Expectations, 1860
- Ebenezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim from A Christmas Carol
- Oliver Twist and The Artful Dodger from Oliver Twist
- Pip and Miss Havisham from Great Expectations
Works Published before 1850
Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843.First chapter of A Christmas Carol in PDF format.
Works Published after 1850
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— in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859.My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, 1861.
Other British Authors
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813.Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversation?” Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1897.
American Authors
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Herman Melville, Moby Dick, 1851.
The towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. They were neither citadels nor churches, but frankly and beautifully office-buildings. Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, 1922.
European Authors
Three hundred and forty-eight years, six months, and nineteen days ago to-day, the Parisians awoke to the sound of all the bells in the triple circuit of the city, the university, and the town ringing a full peal. Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1831.One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked. Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis, 1915.