There are some writers and works which have either been historically influential or become embedded into the common consciousness. Working through the alphabet, how many of these writers or works have influenced your thoughts?
A - Jane Austen
Jane Austen (1775-1817) wrote six finished novels, each featuring social commentary and highlighting female dependence on marriage for economic security and social standing. Her best known works are Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), and Emma (1816).
B - The Brontë Sisters
Although Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë each became successful published authors, it is the works of Jane Eyre (1847) and Wuthering Heights (1847) respectively written by Charlotte and Emily, which remain most remembered. The gothic novels are thought to be heavily influenced by the sisters’ residence in West Yorkshire.
C - Lewis Caroll
Born Charles Dodgson (1832-1898), he was an academic at Christ Church, Oxford, where he began as a mathematical lecturer. The famous works of his pen name, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass (1871), initially derived from stories he created to tell the children of Dean Henry Liddell.
D - Charles Dickens
The most generally remembered of Victorian writers, Charles Dickens (1812-1870) created many popular stories and characters. Most of his novels were originally published in installments with cliffhangers at the end of each section, and his tales became so associated with his time that a form of his name “Dickensian” has even come to be used to describe a social era. Dickens was himself a campaigner for social reform, which is exhibited through some of his best known works such as The Adventures of Oliver Twist (1837-1839), A Christmas Carol (1843), David Copperfield (1849-1850), and A Tale of Two Cities (1859).
E – George Eliot
Pseudonym of Mary Anne Evans (1819-1880) she wished to be considered an author of social commentary rather than romances, which still usually feature in her writings. Her most enduring novels are Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871-1872), and Daniel Deronda (1876).
F - Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding (1707-1754) is best known for his comic novel The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling (1749), considered to be among the first novels written in English. Tom Jones exhibits Fielding’s satirical and often earthy style.
G - Elizabeth Gaskell
Often referred to as Mrs. Gaskell (1810-1865), she was friends with contemporary writers Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë. Her biography of Brontë is perhaps Gaskell’s best known and most influential work, but among her other writings she also wrote novels such as Mary Barton (1848), Cranford (1853), North and South (1854), and Wives and Daughters (1865).
H-N Guide To Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century British Literature
The guide to writers and their works continues with H-N Essential 1700s and 1800s British Literature. From Ivanhoe to The Jungle Book many famous works were produced during the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The genre of boarding school books would be heavily influences by Tom Brown’s Schooldays, and while Rudyard Kipling, Henry James, Thomas Hughes, and Sir Walter Scott wrote novels, Robert Burns and W.S. Gilbert set poetic words to music.
Elizabeth Fredericks - Elizabeth Fredericks is a graduate of Oxford University, and she has worked as a freelance writer since her first paid assignment as a ...
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