The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

There has already been some discussion in the Trollope schedule thread about a possible new project. We've already read the complete novels of Dickens in one project and Anthony Trollope's two series, the Chronicles of Barsetshire and the Palliser novels in another. We attempted at a Rougeon-Macquart read that faded out.

Please post any suggestions or comments about another project.

While a number of us enjoyed the Trollope series we would prefer to do something where the books are stand alone to allow more people to join along the way (as happened with the Dickens project).

Please share your thoughts!

Although RR has mainly American members we don't do many American novels so how about an Edith Wharton 'series'?

Ann Radcliffe? I know she wrote only six novels (so significantly less than Dickens and Trollope) but maybe a smaller project would be better? It also looks like the group hasn't read any of her novels yet.
Or maybe a Brontë project? It looks like the only one read so far in the group has been Villette.

Orley Farm is a standalone. The Three Clerks is a standalone. The Way We Live Now is a standalone.

Need I go on?

In another group, we did three Henry Jameses and three Joseph Conrads last year.

Edith Wharton is a good suggestion.

I really want to read more of Wilkie Collins's books, but I understand if others don't want a third project with a Victorian British male.

Is there enough stuff by Mary Shelley? I'm not sure if any of her other books are well known aside from Frankenstein.

We could do sets of short stories (Chekhov).

Edward Bulwer-Lytton (Yes, I know the jokes, but Zanoni is fabulous.)

Mary Elizabeth Braddon (If her book doesn't win the poll)?

Not sure if I should be a voice here because of the low prob the next choice is anything I have short listed for myself.

That said if this is about possible names
https://www.google.com/search?client=...
Lewis Karol and Rudyard Kipling. Thomas Hardy
Oscar Wilde
George Elliott

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victori...

I am gonna give a partic shout out to
Annie Sophie Cory aka Victoria Cross:
Quote
novelist whose futuristic analysis of gender roles had so stirred the mind of the veteran suffragist? Her pseudonym was Victoria Cross (though she used various other names in ordinary life), she was 67, and this was her twenty-fifth, and by no means the strangest or the most daring of her extraordinary novels. A best seller in her time, she rarely received anything but scathing reviews in respectable literary journals, but her wanton disregard for literary propriety often took her into unexplored territory. She began to write in the mid-1890s, and from her earliest work her selling-point was sex, and the taboos which surround it. Her most notorious work, the best-selling Anna Lombard (1901), is set in contemporary India and deals explicitly with a sexual relationship between an upper-class English girl and her Indian lover;
https://victorianfictionresearchguide...

I have read some of her short stories and Anna Lombard. That one sneaks up on you and then flips over all assumptions.
Not sure she is the best at wordsmithing , but her stories are not to be assumed.


More ideas
https://www.google.com/search?client=...

Madge UK wrote: "Although RR has mainly American members we don't do many American novels so how about an Edith Wharton 'series'?"


I love Wharton and have read 14 of her novels and novellas. However, about half of Wharton's works are outside the group time period.

I’m a Wilkie Collins fan so wouldn’t mind doing him

It's hard to come up with an author whose works everyone would read like Dickens, where I'm aware of everyone of his novels. As Christopher points out, Trollope has many good stand alones but, unlike Dickens' works, they are not well-known. There are also so many of them that you'd have to just select some. However, more importantly, after 12 Trollopes, the group is ready to move on.

Most Victorians don't work for me. I've read all of Hardy and re-read the ones I wanted to. I've read 5 out of 7 Brontes and would only re-read Wuthering Heights. I've read Wilkie Collins' major 2 but have no interest is the others. However, others like Deborah and Lori would be interested in more Collins and perhaps Rosemarie would too. I'm doing the major Gaskell's already and, as someone else pointed out, so has the group.
As to Victorian/Edwardians, I've read 7 Henry James and wouldn't re-read or read many more. It is difficult to read more than 2 James in a year. I've read 9 Conrads and not ready for re-reads.

The only Victorian that works for me is George Eliot. I've read 5 out of her 7 but they were long enough ago that I'd re-read them and the 2 I haven't read, Romola and Felix Holt, interest me.

But Rosemarie is correct, we should move off of Victorians. But there is no 19th Century Russian, German or French I'd want to read more than one or two on - except perhaps 3 more Zolas. And he had his chance and failed to attract. Like Trollope, he has too many books, but Trollope had the 2 six book series.

Perhaps a Theme Project with variety? I thought of woman authors on each continent. There are so many North America and Europe candidates that it could be moderators choices. My Brilliant Career and The Story of an African Farm would fit for Australia and Africa. However, Asia and South America stymied me and Antarctica would have to be skipped.

But perhaps the brains here could come up with a long range project theme that could encompass a variety of authors .

I have read all the major Thomas Hardys and most of the George Eliots, and don't plan on rereading them for quite a while.
How about Ivan Turgenev? His books are short and easy to reread. The only book we have done by him is Fathers and Sons.

Maybe we could look at plays instead of novels to change it up?
Or the works of Oscar Wilde?
I think a theme of female authors is a good idea too.

Rosemarie wrote: "I have read all the major Thomas Hardys and most of the George Eliots, and don't plan on rereading them for quite a while.
How about"

Like the Americans waiting at the docks to read about the fate of Little Nell, I'm waiting breathlessly for the next installment of your post.

I switched from the app to the website. 😹

Rosemarie wrote: "I have read all the major Thomas Hardys and most of the George Eliots, and don't plan on rereading them for quite a while.
How about Ivan Turgenev? His books are short and easy to r..."

Ivan Turgenev is a good suggestion, and I'm also interested in Brian's suggestion of woman authors from each continent.

Or Dostoevsky?

Thanks for all your comments so far. We (the mods) are going to let this discussion percolate for a bit and then we may either choose something that seems to resonate with a fair number in the group or we'll have a mini-poll with a few suggestions that one of us (or another volunteer) would be willing to moderate over an extended period of time.

So please continue to make suggestions, and also to give support to ideas you think you'd be interested in joining.

IF Russia is gong to be on the list -
Nikolai Gogol
Mostly known as a realist but also for his humor.
Most famous in the US is likely to be the movies: The Inspector General with Danny Kaye or Taras Bulba with Yul Brenner
Other wise he is known for his humor.
I have not been able to focus on what is humor in Russia, so he is likely to be an answer to that quest.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/e...

I have read some, including both of the above mentioned; but feel not just open to but hoping to hear some other thoughts

I would support Turgenev. He is like Trollope, in that all his stories seem the same after awhile.. Smoke, The Torrents of Spring.

But they are short.

Christopher wrote: "I would support Turgenev. He is like Trollope, in that all his stories seem the same after awhile.. Smoke, The Torrents of Spring.

But they are short."

I've never even heard of any other Turgenev novels, and know nothing about them, other than Fathers & Sons which I have scheduled to read in June in the Never Too late to Read Classics group. But short is good.

Rosemarie mentioned plays. I read the Checkov major 4 plays about 10 years ago but it is probably Henrik Ibsen who has the most well-known quality plays to make up a sufficient project.

There's the following 8 plays:

Four Major Plays, Vol. 1: A Doll House / The Wild Duck / Hedda Gabler / The Master Builder
Four Major Plays, Vol. 2: Ghosts / An Enemy of the People / The Lady from the Sea / John Gabriel Borkman

and add in:
Rosmersholm (to read about the original Rebecca West) and, Peer Gynt and you have 10 plays for a project.
It's just a suggestion as I'm not pushing for this, having read about 8 of them already, though I would join in to re-read.

Has anyone considered George Gissing? He has been called the last great Victorian novelist. George Orwell was a huge fan of his work and even wrote that he was 'perhaps the best novelist England has produced.' He seems somewhat neglected in the UK yet I know from members of the George Gissing Trust that his birthplace in Wakefield, England, often has visitors from all over the world. Many said they had visited because they had studied his work as part of their university degree courses. His novel 'New Grub Street' was 28th in the hundred best novels list published by the Guardian in 2014.

I would read the novels of George Gissing. I have a couple of his novels sitting on my shelf, waiting to be read.

I liked the themed idea.

Trev wrote: "Has anyone considered George Gissing? He has been called the last great Victorian novelist. George Orwell was a huge fan of his work and even wrote that he was 'perhaps the best novelist England ha..."

I had thought of George Gissing because I'd really like to read both New Grub Street and The Odd Women some day. However, I didn't suggest him since I didn't think he had a sufficient amount of novels people would want to read to sustain a project. While those 2 books have 5200 and 4000 Goodreads ratings respectively, the number of such ratings drop to 700, then 300 and then 128 ratings for his 3rd, 4th and 5th most popular novels.

Another writer that could be mentioned here is George Meredith. Probably more well known for his poetry today, he wrote many novels and while he struggled to be popular he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature seven times. His work was favoured by Oscar Wilde who said of him 'His style is like chaos illuminated by flashes of lightning.' His novels include 'The Egoist,' 'Diana of the Crossways' and 'Evan Harrington.'

Trev wrote: "Another writer that could be mentioned here is George Meredith...."

I always associate the Georges, Meredith and Gissing, together since I read an article about 15 years ago describing them, along with Thomas Hardy, as the three great novelists of the late Victorian era.
Also, I once used his somewhat famous first novel, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, in another Goodreads group's Name That Book guessing game.

I think there was a literary friendship between Gissing, Meredith and Hardy which also included H G Wells.

Going right back to the beginning of this group's period and moving away from Victorian authors, Daniel Defoe produced ten novels between 1719 and 1724 (seven if you combine the three Robinson Crusoe novels.) I would be interested in reading his other work as well as Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders.

Christopher wrote: "Orley Farm is a standalone. The Three Clerks is a standalone. The Way We Live Now is a standalone."

If you mean that The Trollope Project could keep going for a while, I agree... I thought we’d be reading Anthony Trollope for another couple of years! I would be happy to do Orley Farm, Three Clerks, American Senator, a few other of his best or best-knowns, then end with bang on The Way We Live Now.

I think I am in the minority though, of fellow Trollope Project readers! :-)

Bonnie, while I'm up for more Trollope, most appear ready to move on after 12 Trollopes. Also, unlike with Dickens, most readers are unaware of Trollope's other books such as Three Clerks or American Senator, and they might not attract many group readers.

However, The Way We Live Now is often considered Trollope's masterpiece and is a stand-alone worthy of being read by this group. If Frances is willing to moderate, perhaps rather than a Trollope biography as once suggested, we could finish the Trollope Project with that stand-alone and give the moderators a 2 month extension of time to discuss and decide on the next project while we read it. Of course, even if Frances was up for it, I don't know if any of the Trollope-burn outs could endure 800 more pages.

"He Knew He Was Right"
🙌
Yes, most of the folks are "Whew, enough white male Victorians for a while" and I'm like, "What, I thought this was a five-year project, we are only half through!"
🤓
"Can You Forgive Her?"

Brian wrote: "Bonnie, while I'm up for more Trollope, most appear ready to move on after 12 Trollopes. Also, unlike with Dickens, most readers are unaware of Trollope's other books such as Three Clerks or Americ..."

Personally, I second this motion.

I would love to read The Way We Live Now.

I have enjoyed the (admittedly limited) Balzac works that I've read, so if there is any interest in him I'd be willing to lead a project.

I also like really like the idea of a themed project, that would allow us to read various authors to compare/contrast.

Brian wrote: "Bonnie, while I'm up for more Trollope, most appear ready to move on after 12 Trollopes. Also, unlike with Dickens, most readers are unaware of Trollope's other books such as Three Clerks or Americ..."

Well let’s put The way we live now on our to be read bookshelf. Nothing stopping us from making this a monthly choice. And yes it would take more than a month

I realize it's a challenge to find a line where enough people are interested in reading many books (Charles Dickens), vs. They have already read all the books (Jane Austen), vs. What fraction has the group already read. That having been said my personal votes:
first tier:
Elizabeth Gaskell
Thomas Hardy
Rudyard Kipling
Mark Twain

second:
Balzac - Comedie Human
Brontes - all
Dostoevsky
George Eliot
Henry James
Margaret Oliphant

One thing about Flaubert is, all his books are very different from one another.

⊱✿Gem✿⊰ wrote:
I also like really like the idea of a themed project, that..."

One theme I have been thinking of might be too loose but boils down to 'not enough money,' something which George Orwell wrote was the main theme of all George Gissing's work.

Some examples that would fit this theme would be Edith Wharton's House of Mirth, Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton or Ruth, Wilkie Collin's No Name, Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now, quite a few Dickens such as Little Dorrit or Oliver Twist, Henry Fielding's Amelia, and many of George Gissing's such as The Nether World, The Unclassed, New Grub Street and The Odd Women. I would also like to include The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist by Robert Tressell. It was completed in 1910 but he couldn't get it published. It was finally published in 1914 after his death.

OK, so lots of options reviewed here.

First, I'm going to send out a quick poll to see if there is still interest in doing one or a few of Trollope's stand alone novels (I'm interested as well, but didn't want to be doing this on my own!).

If there are enough of us to do this, we'll complete this project first.

If not, I'll chat with the other mods about what if any project we'd be interested in leading going forward.

Thanks for your votes, clearly there is interest in more Trollope. As there are lots of novels to choose from, I've used "best Trollope" lists, Boxall's 1001 books list, availability of books on Amazon and at my local public library, and an attempt to choose from different times in his career to propose the following 5 novels:

Orley Farm (1862)
The Claverings (1866)
He Knew He Was Right (1869)
The Way We Live Now (1875)
Ayala's Angel (1881)

The Claverings may be the only one that is hard to find in a book book, but remember everything is available from Project Gutenberg for free.

If there's something you desperately wanted to read that isn't on the list, please suggest it and suggest which book you'd replace as we're going to stick with 5 books. Please check that your suggestion is readily available through one of the on-line booksellers for those who like to use hard copies.

Again, I'll give some time for comments on this proposal and then aim to start May 5th with Orley Farm (unless there is a strong wish to replace with another).

Hello,
I’m new here, but this genre is one of my favorites.
I mostly listen to audiobooks these days, after discovering LibriVox.
I just checked and Orley Farm and The Claverings are both on LibriVox.
I use the app Audiobooks HQ. It’s the best one IMHO, after trying many others.
I’ll look at the other threads to see if I can find answers to my questions such as:
How long do we have to finish each book?
I’ve never done a read-along; it sounds fun!

Welcome! There is always a Reading Schedule thread posted for each book. Many books are one month long, but some run longer. For our projects with Dickens and Trollope, we only read about 50 pages a week so that we have time for other reads. The original idea with Dickens was to read it in the way the books actually appeared as serials.

The threads stay available, so that if you want to comment on something after the reading time has ended, that is always fine.

Amy wrote: "Hello,
I’m new here, but this genre is one of my favorites.
I mostly listen to audiobooks these days, after discovering LibriVox.
I just checked and Orley Farm and The Claverings are both on Lib..."

Hi Amy. Welcome. How long to finish each book - basically it depends on the length of the book. Bigger books - longer time. We set discussion threads by week. So week one would cover x number of pages. The threads stay open so even if you fall behind you can easily access and contribute to the discuss. Believe me we still will see your comments.

I'm not really suggesting this, but the whole idea of theme reads reminds me that a protagonist professor in David Lodge's The Campus Trilogy, taught a course on Victorian Industrial novels that included the following novels:

Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Sybil, or the Two Nations by Benjamin Disraeli
Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet by Charles Kingsley
Shirley by Charlotte Brontë
Felix Holt: The Radical by George Eliot, and
Hard Times by Charles Dickens

I thought the idea of completing the course to be intriguing, maybe because I had just read North and South. Of course, it is a British university course, taught at a fictional version of The University of Birmingham. I thought others might be interested in the novels Lodge's character chose to put together for this theme.

Amy wrote: "Hello,
I’m new here, but this genre is one of my favorites.
I mostly listen to audiobooks these days, after discovering LibriVox.
I just checked and Orley Farm and The Claverings are both on Lib..."

Hi Amy and welcome, I hope you've found the thread for our Orley Farm discussion-if not it's at https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/.... We'll be taking just over 2 months to complete this book-we normally read and discuss 50-70 pages/week. Glad you'll be joining us!

Not sure where to write this, but,

Is there a schedule for the Miss Marjoribanks reading in February? I want to see if I can join and whether I should purchase the book.

Will it be over four weeks or more like 50 pages per week.

Miss Marjoribanks for Kindle is now free on Amazon, for everyone interested.

Is there a schedule for the Miss Marjoribanks reading in February? I want to see if I can join and whether I should purchase the book.

Will it be over four wee..."

I don’t mean detailed schedule. I mean will we roughly read it over four weeks or over six to seven weeks?

We'll let you know a couple of weeks in advance, Charlotte. It really depends on the length of the book.

Charlotte wrote: "Not sure where to write this, but,

Is there a schedule for the Miss Marjoribanks reading in February? I want to see if I can join and whether I should purchase the book.

Will it be over four wee..."

Hello Charlotte, this was a rather last minute decision to add a Mod's Choice read, and so I haven't had the time to get a copy and find out how long the novel is-checking on-line it appears to be about 500 pages in a paperback so I'm guessing 6-7 weeks in length, taking us into mid-March. I do hope you'll be able to join us as I understand it's a fun and light read, which I think many of us could use at this time :)

Frances wrote: "Charlotte wrote: "Not sure where to write this, but,

Is there a schedule for the Miss Marjoribanks reading in February? I want to see if I can join and whether I should purchase the book.

Will i..."

Thank you so much for your message, Frances. I will go ahead and purchase the book. There is some delay in deliveries between the U.K. and Denmark at the moment, so I just wanted to make sure I had it in time. (I only read printed books.)

Just so people know, there is a free version available via Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Miss-Marjori...

Alison wrote: "Just so people know, there is a free version available via Amazon.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Miss-Marjori......"

For Amazon U.S. rather than Amazon U.K.. the link is https://www.amazon.com/Miss-Marjoriba...

Under the current exchange rate, the price in British pounds, £0.00, is the equivalent of the price in American dollars, $0.00.

Ha ha, thanks for the conversion! It's convenient that most of our books for this group are in public domain. We just have issues with various editions and translations.

I heard that 2 of the books that entered public domain on Jan 1 of this year are Mrs. Dalloway and The Great Gatsby. That is why a "prequel" to Gatsby is being published this year. These books are too "new" for our group.