Any Victorians out there?!

[JackieW]

Hi all!

Obviously enough, wondering if there are any other Victorian Lit-ers out there. I'm finally starting to get my literary butt in gear for the summer (and re-application time!) and I wanted to know if anyone wanted to join me?

[jasper.milvain]

Hi Jackie,

I'm also reading Victorian lit this summer, as well as some Edwardian stuff.

Here's my list:

Arnold Bennett

- The Old Wives' Tale

- Over There: War Scenes from the Western Front

Charles Dickens

- Bleak House

- David Copperfield

- The Mystery of Edwin Drood

George Eliot

- Danel Deronda

- Felix Holt, Radical

Elizabeth Gaskell

- Ruth

H. Rider Haggard

- King Solomon's Mines

- She

Henry James

- Roderick Hudson

- The Bostonians

- The Golden Bowl

- The Wings of the Dove

- The Princess Cassimassima

G. B. Shaw

- Major Barbara

- Pygmalion

- Man and Superman

Robert Louis Stevenson

- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

- Treasure Island

H. G. Wells

- Love and Mr. Lewisham

- The Shape of Things to Come

- The History of Mr. Polly

Edith Wharton

- The House of Mirth

- Ethan Frome

Jules Verne

- Around the World in 80 Days

- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

There must be some I'm forgetting... Obviously it's a bit of a quirky list. I'm filling in big canonic holes in my reading (Dickens, Eliot, etc), reading the late Victorian cranks that I'm really interested in (Wells, Shaw, James) and fleshing out the popular culture that they were writing in (Haggard, Stevenson, Verne).

What are your plans? Any particular angle you're taking?

[Minnesotan]

Gah! Reading that list made me wish I had time for fiction this summer. I love it all (although there were quite a few on that list that I need to read, too). *DROOL*

Anyway, not a Victorian by trade -- just an armchair Victorian. =)

[JackieW]

Hi Jasper,

Wow, your list is much more organized than mine! I'm just sort of going the "pick and choose what book I feel like reading" route.

I just started Vanity Fair, so I figure that will take me some time to plow through. After that, I'm on to Sense and Sensibility. I do, however, need to read some Henry James, and I should tackle a few more Dickens novels.

Let me know if you want to coordinate and read some of the same books at the same time and have a mini-discussion or two?

[jasper.milvain]

Hi Jackie,

This list only looks organized because I'm writing it after the fact. Most of it is made up of one big Amazon wish list that I made ages ago. So I did the 'pick and choose what I feel like reading' method and came up with something that looks pretty decent. Let me know when you get through Vanity Fair. I haven't read S&S yet, and if you're reading a Dickens or James that I haven't gotten to, I'd be happy to chat.