Shirley by Charlotte Bronte. With an Introduction and Notes by Sally Minogue The Shirley of the title is a woman of independent means; her friend Caroline is not. Both struggle with what a woman's rol…
Paul Dombey is a wealthy shipping merchant whose wife dies giving birth to their second child, a long-hoped-for son and heir. Young Paul's health is fragile and he dies aged six, dashing his father's …
Set against the backdrop of the Gordon Riots of 1780, Barnaby Rudge is a story of mystery and suspense which begins with an unsolved double murder and goes on to involve conspiracy, blackmail, abducti…
Fourth in the Barsetshire Chronicles, Framley Parsonage was published in 1860. In it the values of a Victorian gentleman, the young clergyman Mark Robarts, are put to the test.
Considered by contemporary critics to be Trollope's greatest novel, The Way We Live Now is a satire of the literary world of nineteenth-century London and a bold indictment of the new power of specula…
Tempestuous Eustacia Vye passes her days dreaming of passionate love and the escape it may bring from the small community of Egdon Heath. Hearing that Clym Yeobright is to return from Paris, she sets …
Ninety-three, the last of Victor Hugo's novels, is regarded by many including such diverse critics as Robert Louis Stevenson and André Maurois as his greatest work.
A satiric masterpiece about the allure and peril of money, Our Mutual Friend revolves around the inheritance of a dust-heap where the rich throw their trash. When the body of John Harmon, the dust-hea…
The Warden centers on Mr. Harding, a clergyman of great personal integrity who is nevertheless in possession of an income from a charity far in excess of the sum devoted to the purposes of the foundat…
With her final novel, Villette, Charlotte Brontë reached the height of her artistic power. First published in 1853, Villette is Brontë's most accomplished and deeply felt work, eclipsing even Jane Eyr…
This is Elizabeth Gaskell's first novel, a widely acclaimed work based on the actual murder, in 1831, of a progressive mill owner. It follows Mary Barton, daughter of a man implicated in the murder, t…
