A Love of Victorian Literature

 

My favourite literary genre is Victorian Literature (1837-1901). I can't get enough of it. I have met a few people who tell me that they find it long winded and boring. I leave feeling like they have criticised one of my children.

I am not alone in my love of this period. The nineteenth century is regarded by many people, myself included, as the golden age of English Literature. At this time the novel became the most popular form of writing in England.

Many of the novels of the period deal with the realities and issues of the day, like the dangers of factory work, the difficulties faced by the lower classes and the way women and children were treated. One of the things I love about these stories is that in so many of them hard work, determination and love win in the end, with just a little luck thrown in. Virtue is usually rewarded and those who do wrong are suitably punished. In the latter part of the era, following Dickens' death in 1870, authors tended to provide fewer happy endings. These books I have really had to work with.

My love of Victorian literature began when I was seven. Miss Whitaker, my top infants teacher read us Black Beauty (1877). I pestered my Mum for a copy of my own and read it many times. She also bought me a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses (1885). I loved these poems about shadows, going to bed at daytime in summer and the moon with a face like the clock in the hall. Then she gave me a copy of Alice Through the Looking Glass (1871). I loved the sheer weirdness of Lewis Carroll.

When I was ten my Mum presented me with two more Victorian novels - and abridged Wuthering Heights (1847) and Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843). I loved both of these books. it's funny but until I was writing this blog I hadn't realised what an important part my Mum played in my choice of favourite genre.

For O level we studied The Importance of Being Earnest ((1895) and there began a lifelong love of Oscar Wilde. As a class we were given the choice for one of our novels between Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd and Lawrence's Son's and Lovers. I'm sure that you have guessed that Hardy was my choice but the majority of my class opted for Lawrence, which was very good but I still felt cheated.

By my late teens I was Bronte obsessed and devoured the unabridged Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre (1847), Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848). I then moved on to Dickens. I found his writing too detailed and descriptive. A friend told me that he had been paid by the instalments and eked them out. Maybe I needed and abridged Dickens! A few years ago I decided to try his writing again now that I am older and began with A Tale of Two Cities, which I absolutely loved. I enjoy his descriptive writing now and am gradually working my way through his works.

Another favourite writer of  mine is Elizabeth Gaskell. Such a wonderful writer, her books are filled with a strong sense of how well she knew the world outside her home and how much she wanted people to realise the unfairness of it and the bad treatment of the poor. I began with Mary Barton (1845). I was hooked and quickly moved on to North and South (1854) and Cranford (1853). Recently I read Wives and Daughters (1866) her last and unfinished novel. Oh how I love her work and I still have quite a few of her books to read. Although her writing can be grim and gritty I love her happy endings.

As I said before, after 1870 happy endings became less common. That is where I hit my downfall with Victorian Literature. The first Thomas Hardy I attempted was Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891). I sobbed my way through it. I followed this with Jude the Obscure (1895) - that book destroyed me and I swore that I would never read another Hardy novel. Thirty years later I read that Hardy didn't write another novel after the criticism of Tess and Jude and I felt guilty and decided that it was time that I dealt with a little reality in amongst my happy endings. I read Far From the Madding Crowd (1874) and loved it. There are now quite a few Hardy's in my TBR pile.

Many wonderful Victorian authors I have only read one book by and I still  have lots of works by George Eliot, Wilkie Collins and Robert Louis Stevenson waiting to be read. There were so many books written at this time that will delight me for years to come.

In amongst my favourite happy endings I also found some super Gothic horror that I loved - Frankenstein (1818), Dracula (1897), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). They knew how to do horror in the nineteenth century.

A few years ago I decided that I needed to branch out with my reading. I'm reading much more widely now but, while I enjoy the variety, my heart still belongs with the Victorian novel. I love the detailed, descriptive writing, I love the moralistic tales and I love the fact that it makes me think about the treatment of the poor today, the need for worker's rights and how many other things still apply today.

There is so much Victorian Literature that I still haven't read, all written with the descriptive detail that I love. I will continue to broaden my reading but I shall be slipping a few more Victorian books into my pile each month.

Where does a love of reading start?

 

Where does a love of reading start?

Yesterday I was talking with someone on Twitter who had said how shocked she was to have visited someone who had not a single book in their house. When she asked they told her that they didn't read. I am always surprised by this, not in a judging way, but just because I cannot imagine a life without books.

For as long as I can remember books have been a part of my life. There obviously was a time before I could read but I cannot remember it or indeed learning to read, it just seems to be a joy that was always there.

My earliest memory of reading is lying in bed at night reading Bunny Hopwell's First Spring. I read it every night for weeks. I loved watching the little rabbit's confusion and how he learned. Maybe I identified with him because he had older brothers and sisters who knew about the world. I shared a room with my sister who was ten years older than me, who knew so much and was a keen reader.

We didn't have money for lots of books but my Mum would take me to Woolworths on the last Friday of every month to buy a new Ladybird Well-loved Tales book. I can remember reading them over and over and feeling like I had been given the world to have my own collection. My Mum also had friends who passed on books for me so bedtime reading was extended. I especially remember  The Little Prince, Asterix The Gaul and Alice Through the Looking Glass. I also had hand me downs from my brother like The Golden Wonder Book filled with history, science and poetry. That one I would read over and over downstairs after tea.

I had wonderful teachers at school. They read amazing books to us and I loved to listen. I pestered my Mum for special favourites to reread on my own - Black Beauty in top Infants and The Hundred and One Dalmations in first year juniors. I still  have both of those books now and they still bring back happy childhood memories when I read them.

I can remember my Dad coming home from work and lying on the sofa devouring books. The two I especially remember were Kidnapped and The Count of Monte Cristo because he talked about those with so much enthusiasm. I still have my Dad's copy of the latter, as you can see, but I still haven't read it. It was one of my Dad's favourites and I'm scared in case I don't like it as much as he did. One day I will read it.

When I was ten my Mum brought home two more wonderful books for me. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol which  I have read every Christmas since. My original copy is now barely holding together so my daughter bought me a new copy a few years ago. I still love it as much as I did the first time I read it. She also bought me an abridged copy of Wuthering Heights. I was amazed by the writing and then my Mum told me about the Brontes (sorry my computer won't put the umlaut over the e). That was the first time I began to think about the authors as people. I had only ever considered the books as worlds to get lost in before and not that there were real humans with lives of their own behind these wonderful novels.

My Mum also took me to the Bronte Parsonage to see where the three sisters lived and there began my adoration of the Brontes. Over the years my collection has extended. I wonder whether my Mum realised how much enthusiasm she instilled in me over the years and what she would think if she saw my ever-increasing Bronte collection.

Mum and I would often sit reading together. We mostly had completely different tastes in books but, as she would tell you, everyone is different and it would be a dull world if we all liked the same things.

My reading enthusiasm continued throughout high school. For O and A level I had the most wonderful English teacher. I think he was coming up to retirement but he had lost none of his enthusiasm for the subject. Thanks to him I started to read and love Jane Austen, John Keats. John Wyndham. He even made me enthusiastic for D H Lawrence which, believe me, in the 15 year old I was, was no mean feat. I went to restoration plays because of him - and I loved them, so thank you Mr Smith for your enthusiasm.

In my first year at university I had a lecturer who seemed to be mostly going through the motions and wasn't enthusiastic for any of the texts he worked through with us. I never enjoyed any of the books I studied with him. Others filled me with light and enthusiasm and made me want to read more.

On our second date my husband presented me with a new book. An Isabel Allende. He certainly knew the way to a girl's heart.

When I had my children one of my favourite times of all was bedtime reading. We'd read old favourites and new books and the enjoyment for all of us was immense. I was so sad when they were too old to want bedtime stories. I miss acting and doing all the voices. I missed an excuse to read childhood favourites too. Now I realise that I don't need an excuse and I read them anyway. I am currently loving working my way through the Anne books again. 

Over the years I have explored new authors and genres, mostly because of encouragement from people who loved them. My reading world continues to expand. I take a book everywhere I go and I love to explore the world and get lost in books. So thank you to all those people who inspired me along the way.

Whatever books you enjoy are wonderful and never be told differently. If you are happily reading and you are enthusiastic for what you are reading then you have the world.

In answer to the question I posed at the start of this blog. Where does a love of reading start? It starts with enthusiasm.