The haunting intensity of Catherine Earnshaw's attachment to Heathcliff is the focus of a novel which relations between men and women are described with an emotional and imaginative power unparalleled in English fiction.
First published in 1847, Wuthering Heights is set on the bleak Yorkshire moors, where the drama of Catherine and Heathcliff, Heathcliff's cruel revenge against Edgar and Isabella Linton, and the promise of redemption through the next generaion in enacted.
Set in Manchester at the start of the "hungry forties", Mary Barton(1848) is a sympathetic, truthful portrayal of ordinary people struggling with rapid social change and overcrowded cities.
Mary Barton is the daughter of a mill worker and trade unionist, John Barton. Flattered by the attentions of Henry Carson, the son of one of the mill owners, she rejects the love and devotion of her faithful admirer, Jem Wilson. But Carson is murdered and suspicion falls on Jem. It is not only Mary who has to consider her real allegiances and feelings as events unfold. The impact of the murder affects the lives and attitudes of all concerned.
Elizabeth Gaskell's first novel introduced the fiction-reading public of the mid-nineteenth century to aspects of the contemporary world it knew little about. Part tragedy, part romance, passionate anger yet touched by humour, Mary Barton remains the major novel acclaimed by Charles Dickens on first publication.
Here's the blurb for Cranford taken from Barnes and Noble:In this classic portrait of life in a quiet English village of the early nineteenth century, Elizabeth Gaskell writes with wit and affection of the foibles, follies and endearing eccentricities of its occupants as they struggle to maintain standards in their genteel poverty. This witty and poignant comedy, with its ironic observations on the pretensions of class is told through the eyes of a young woman who befriends the elderly ladies of Cranford.
"Her present life appeared like a dream of a distempered imagination or like one of those frightful fictions, in which wild genius of the poets sometimes delighted. Reflection brought only regret, and anticipation terror."
Such is the state of mind of Ann Radcliffe's orphaned heroine Emily St. Aubert, who finds herself imprisoned in her her evil guardian Count Montoni's gloomy medieval fortress in the remote Apennines. Terror is the order of the day inside the walls of Udolpho, as Emily struggles against Montoni's rapacious schemes and the threat of her own psychological disintegration.
A bestseller in its day and a potent influence on Sade, Poe, and other writers, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) is Radcliffe's classic work of Gothic fiction. With its dream-like plot and hallucinatory of its characters' psychological states, the novel remains a profound and fascinating challenge to modern readers.
I just finished reading Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell, and what a wonderful experience it was. Although I've heard of the author beforehand - I'm a huge fan of the BBC mini series North & South, I had never read her. I also have N&S on my nightstand waiting for its turn. But Wives and Daughters was a library book, I decided to read it first.
I read Evelina last month, and this month's selection was Camilla - a selection for the 18th & 19th Century Women Writers' Reading Challenge. I've had this book on my nightstand for a couple of weeks. I tried several times, but the length of the book kept me from starting it. It's a big book, the total pages are 956. Yikes. And because of its length I'm also reading it for the Chunkster Challenge.First published in 1796, Camilla deals with the matrimonial concerns of a group of young people - Camilla Tyrold and her sisters, the daughters of a country parson, and their cousin Indiana Lynmere - and, in particular, with the love affair between Camilla herself and her eligible suitor, Edgar Mandlebert. The path of true love, however, is strewn with intrigue, contretemps and misunderstanding.. "An enormously popular eighteenth-century novel, Camilla is touched at many points by the advancing spirit of romanticism. As in Evelina, Fanny Burney weaves into her novel strands of light and dark, comic episodes and Gothic shudders, and creates a pattern of social and moral dilemmas which emphasize and illuminate the gap between generations.
I read Evelina by Frances Burney as part of 18th & 19th Century Women Writers' Reading Challenge which is being hosted by Becky from Becky's Book Reviews.Evelina, the first and best of Fanny Burney's novels, tells the story of a young girl, fresh from the provinces, at the time of 'her first appearance upon the great and busy stage of life'. In spite of 'a virtuous mind, a cultivated understanding, and a feeling heart', Evelina is ignorant of the ways of the world and her initiation is frequently painful, although it leads to self-discovery, moral growth, and happiness. The life and temper of eighteenth century England is revealed, through Evelina's curiosity, with all it's contrasts of situation and characters - from the peace of the countryside to the cultural and social excitement of London and Bristol; from the crowd of lifelike vulgarians to the elegant gentry. Hilarious comedy and moral gravity make the novel a memorial of entertainment and wisdom. Out of the grateful shifts from the idyllic to the near-tragic and realistic, Evelina emerges as a fully realized heroine.
