Victorian Arts & Literature

Victorian literature was produced during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). Often considered a bridge between the romantic-era works of the previous century and what would become the literature of the newly industrialised world of the twentieth century, Victorian literature is characterised by a strong sense of morality, and it frequently champions the downtrodden. It is also often equated with prudishness and oppression, and while this is sometimes true, Victorian literature is also known for its attempts to combine imagination and emotion with the neoclassical ideal of the accessibility of art for the common person. Some of the best-known authors of this period are Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre), Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights), and Charles Dickens (Great Expectations).

Essential Facts

1. One of the enduring authors of the Victorian era is George Eliot (a pseudonym for Mary Ann Evans). Virginia Woolf called Eliot’s novel Middlemarch “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.”
2. Charles Dickens was a self-made man. He published his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, in 1836. It made him an overnight success, and he was popular all his life. Dickens is still the most widely read novelist of the Victorian era.
3. All three Bronte sisters—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—were writers. For a number of years, however, they all published under the male pen names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.
4. Literature for children, often with a strong moralistic tone, became wildly popular during the Victorian era. Authors like Lewis Carrol (Alice in Wonderland) and Rudyard Kipling (The Jungle Book) were especially favored.
5. Edward Bulwer-Lytton is widely regard as the worst writer of the Victorians (although he was immensely popular in his day). Bulwer-Lytton is responsible for this infamous sentence: “it was a dark and stormy night.”

Charles Dickens

Emily Bronte

Charlotte Bronte

Oscar Wilde

Lewis Carroll

Rudyard Kipling