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19th Century Literature

What happened in the West during the 19th century was pretty much what you'd expect from a society whose religious and philosophical foundations had been shaken to the root after centuries of overt Christian influence. There were basically three possible responses: to reject Christianity and accept the new humanism wholesale; to try to maintain a balance between the two; or, to maintain complete allegiance to the Christian faith and defend it against the growing number of anti-Christian ideas.

Unfortunately, those in the latter group often reverted to a simple anti-intellectualism that, far from upholding a solid Christian worldview, undermined the faith to which they so desperately clung. Those who didn't go to that extreme often went to another—in their attempt to remain intellectually relevant, many Christian writers and thinkers began to embrace the increasingly unchristian ideas surfacing, and try to collate them with orthodox doctrine. It was a confusing time, and the lines of Christian culture and secular culture began to blur in increasingly bizarre ways.

For one thing, theologians began to adopt the view that science and faith were separate realms, and that each had its own realm of authority on which the other could not infringe. Charles Darwin's theory of general evolution was obviously instrumental in fostering this idea, but other forward strides in practical science like the mechanization of the Industrial Revolution, improvements in medical knowledge, and a growing sense that only what could be observed was "real" were just as influential.

It all went back to Progress, really. The Enlightenment ideal of man's interminable forward movement through the centuries meant that things were getting better, and with things demonstrably getting better it was hard for many to argue. Because many of the philosophical ideas that accompanied scientific progress were rooted in humanism rather than Christianity, people assumed the two were incompatible to some degree, and to be reconciled they had to be separated.

Not everyone was happily devoted to Progress, however. One of the 19th century's dominant literary movements was devoted to the opposite. Romanticism was as much a child of the Enlightenment as scientism, but instead of going forward they grasped Rousseau's idea that man is at his best when at his most natural, and went backward. Or tried—praising nature, deriding civilization and technology, and pursuing free love is easier evoked in poetry than practiced in real life, as its leaders soon discovered. Still, men like Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge left behind some of the greatest verse ever written.

The Victorians were certainly influenced by Romanticism and the Enlightenment, but they were a little more balanced. Writers like Charles Dickens (possibly the greatest novelist of all time) and William Makepeace Thackeray combined Christian themes, satire, social activism and a heightened aesthetic sense to simultaneously comment on and delight the culture at large. In many ways the novel came into its own during this period, though some of its best practitioners were still 50-100 years in the future.

In the New World a particularly American version of Romanticism took hold. Transcendentalism as espoused by Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Henry David Thoreau was less organized than its Continental counterpart. It was also less rooted in Western tradition, at least, in the Classical Western tradition; the Transcendentalists preferred biblical symbolism, particularly the Old Testament with its often unsettling and apocalyptic imagery.

No era can claim a single literary or intellectual trajectory, but each phase in human history has its own zeitgeist, the spirit of the age. For the 19th century it was the final shift of authority away from any Divine source and onto the shoulders of man. There were great Christian writers who tried to stem the tide (Robert Browning, R. L. Dabney, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and Charles Ryrie come readily to mind), but secular man was having his heyday and mostly prevailed in the public sphere.

Without the 19th century we wouldn't have most of the fiction genres we enjoy now. Mystery and detective fiction, science fiction, fantasy, escapist adventure novels, realistic historical fiction, etc., all came into being between the beginning of the French Republic and the founding of Major League Baseball. Whatever your opinion of the ideas rampant in these works, these are some of the best philosophical treatises, novels, poems, short stories, and essays history has to offer.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.
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Adam Bede
Everyman's Library
by George Eliot
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Realistic Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$24.00
Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
by Arthur Conan Conan Doyle
from Penguin Classics
for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$14.00
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, illustrated by Richard Lebenson
from Reader's Digest
for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, illustrated by Sidney Paget
100th Anniversary from SeaWolf Press
in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW)
$10.95
Agnes Grey
Penguin Classics
by Anne Bronte
from Penguin Classics
Realistic Romantic Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$12.00
Agnes Grey
by Anne Bronte, Illustrated by Edmund Dulac
from SeaWolf Press
Realistic Romantic Fiction for 10th-Adult
in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW)
$7.95
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
from Sweetwater Press
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
by Lewis Carroll
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
by Lewis Carroll, illustrated by John Tenniel
from Macmillan
Fantasy for 7th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$18.00 (1 in stock)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
by Lewis Carroll
from Modern Library
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$11.00
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
by Lewis Carroll, illustrated by John Tenniel
from Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
by Lewis Carroll, illustrated by John Tenniel
from St. Martin's Press
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
by Lewis Carroll, illustrated by John Tenniel
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
by Lewis Carroll
from Bantam Books
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Annotated Alice
by Lewis Carroll
from Bramhall House
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$10.00 (2 in stock)
Annotated Alice
by Lewis Carroll
Definitive Edition from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Annotated Mother Goose
by William S. Baring-Gould & Ceil Baring-Gould
from Bramhall House
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$9.00 (2 in stock)
Annotated Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
Revised & Expanded from Anchor Books
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$20.00 $12.00 (1 in stock)
Annotated Sherlock Holmes Volumes 1 & 2
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
from Clarkson Potter Publishers
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Apologia Pro Vita Sua
Dover Giant Thrift Editions
by John Henry Newman
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.00
Barnaby Rudge
Everyman's Library
by Charles Dickens
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$25.00
Barnaby Rudge
by Charles Dickens, illustrated by James Daugherty
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Bleak House
by Charles Dickens
from Everyman's Library
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$22.50
Bleak House
by Charles Dickens
from Penguin Putnam
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$13.00
Castle of Otranto
by Horace Walpole
from Dover Publications
for 11th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Charge of the Light Brigade & Other Poems
Dover Thrift Editions
by Alfred Tennyson
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$4.00
Christmas Carol
Dover Thrift Editions
by Charles Dickens
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$3.00
Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens, illustrated by Arthur Rackham
from Gramercy Books
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens, illustrated by Everett Shinn
from Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens, illustrated by John Leech
from J. G. Ferguson Publishing Co.
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens; illustrated by Julian Brazelton
from Pocket Books
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Christmas Carol and Other Stories
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Charles Dickens, illustrated by Arthur Rackham
from Reader's Digest
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Cloister and the Hearth
by Charles Reade, illustrated by Lynd Ward
from Heritage Press
for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Complete Fairy Tales
Penguin Classics
by George MacDonald
from Penguin Classics
Fairy Tales, Fables, and Folklore for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$17.00
Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan
by William Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Drama for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$29.95
Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats
by John Keats
from Modern Library
for 11th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti
by Christina Rossetti
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$22.00
Complete Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
from Penguin Classics
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
Cricket on the Hearth
Dover Thrift Editions
by Charles Dickens
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$6.00
Cricket on the Hearth
by Charles Dickens
from Mcloughlin Bros. Inc
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
David Balfour
Scribner Illustrated Classics
by Robert Louis Stevenson
from Charles Scribner's Sons
Action/Adventure for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
David Copperfield
Everyman's Library
by Charles Dickens
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$30.00
David Copperfield
Signet Classics
by Charles Dickens
from Signet Classics
Realistic Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$6.95
David Copperfield
by Charles Dickens
Revised from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$10.00
David Copperfield
Signet Classics
by Charles Dickens
from Dover Publications
Realistic Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$3.50 (1 in stock)
David Copperfield
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Charles Dickens
from Reader's Digest
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
David Copperfield
by Charles Dickens, illustrated by John Austen
from Easton Press
for 10th-Adult
in Leather Bound Collectible Books (Location: VIN-LEA)
David Copperfield
by Charles Dickens, illustrated by John Austen
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
David Elginbrod
by George MacDonald
from CreateSpace
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Dickens: Five Christmas Novels
by Charles Dickens, illustrated by Reginald B. Birch
from Heritage Press
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Dombey & Son
Everyman's Library
by Charles Dickens
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$27.50
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Everyman's Library
by Robert Louis Stevenson
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$24.00
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.95
Dracula
Books of Wonder
by Bram Stoker (illustrated by Barry Moser)
from HarperCollins
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
ECL: Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (abridged)
Educator Classic Library #7
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, illustrated by Don Irwin
from Classic Press
for 8th-Adult
in Educator Classic Library (Location: VIN-ECL)
ECL: Time Machine & Invisible Man
by H. G. Wells, illustrated by Dick Cole
from Classic Press
Science Fiction/Dystopian literature for 7th-Adult
in Educator Classic Library (Location: VIN-ECL)
Edinburgh
by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by William Wilson
from Robert Grant & Son Ltd.
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
English Victorian Poetry
by Paul Negri, ed.
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry Anthologies (Location: POET-ANTH)
$6.00
Far From the Madding Crowd
by Thomas Hardy
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Far From the Madding Crowd
by Thomas Hardy
from Signet Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Flatland
by Edwin A. Abbott
from Dover Publications
for 10th grade-adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$3.00
Flatland
by Edwin A. Abbott
from Penguin Books
for 10th grade-adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Frankenstein
Everyman's Library
by Mary Shelley
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Horror for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$22.00
Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley
from Penguin Putnam
Horror for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$10.00
Frankenstein
Portland House Illustrated Classics
by Mary Shelley, illustrated by Lynd Ward and Aristides Ruiz
from Portland House
Horror for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley, edited with an introduction and notes by M. K. Joseph
from Oxford University
Horror for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Goblin Market and Other Poems
by Christina Rossetti
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$4.00
Great Expectations
Everyman's Library
by Charles Dickens
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$28.00
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
from International Collectors Library
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens, illustrated by Scott McKowen
from Sterling Publishing Co.
for 8th-Adult
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
Guy Mannering
by Sir Walter Scott
from Penguin Classics
Realistic Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Hard Times
by Charles Dickens
Reissue from Penguin Classics
Realistic Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$9.00
Hard Times
by Charles Dickens
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$2.00 (1 in stock)
Hard Times
by Charles Dickens
from Everyman's Library
Realistic Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
History of Henry Esmond, Esq.
by William Makepeace Thackeray, illustrated by Edward Ardizzone
from Heritage Press
for 11th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
History of Henry Esmond, Esq.
by William Makepeace Thackeray, illustrated by Edward Ardizzone
from Walter J. Black, Inc.
for 11th-Adult
in Walter J. Black Classics Club (Location: VIN-LITWJB)
Hound of the Baskervilles
Signet Classics
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
from Signet Classics
Mystery for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.95
Hound of the Baskervilles
by Arthur Conan Doyle
from Dover Publications
for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.00
Hound of the Baskervilles
by Arthur Conan Doyle, Illustrated by Sidney Paget
100th Anniversary from SeaWolf Press
for 7th-Adult
in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW)
$7.95
Idylls of the King
by Alfred Tennyson
from Penguin Classics
Epic Poetry for 8th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
Illustrated Origin of Species (abridged)
by Charles Darwin, abridged and introduced by Richard E. Leakey
from Hill and Wang
Scientific Philosophy for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Invisible Man
by H. G. Wells
from Signet Classics
Science Fiction for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.95
Invisible Man
by H.G. Wells
from Heritage Press
for 10th grade-adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Invisible Man
by H. G. Wells, illustrated by Louis Strimpl
from SeaWolf Press
Science Fiction for 7th-Adult
in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW)
$7.95
Invisible Man & Island of Dr. Moreau
by H.G. Wells
from Reader's Digest
for 10th grade-adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Island of Dr. Moreau
Signet Classics
by H. G. Wells
from Signet Classics
Speculative Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.95
Island of Dr. Moreau
Signet Classics
by H. G. Wells
from Dover Publications
Speculative Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.00
Island of Dr. Moreau
by H. G. Wells
from SeaWolf Press
Speculative Fiction for 9th-Adult
in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW)
Ivanhoe
by Sir Walter Scott
from Bantam Books
Historical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Ivanhoe
Signet Classics
by Sir Walter Scott
from Signet Classics
Historical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.95
Ivanhoe
by Sir Walter Scott
from Dover Publications
Historical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.95
Ivanhoe
by Sir Walter Scott
from International Collectors Library
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Ivanhoe
by Sir Walter Scott, Illustrated by Frank E. Schoonover
200th Anniversary from SeaWolf Press
Historical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW)
Ivanhoe
by Sir Walter Scott, Illustrated by Edward A. Wilson
from Heritage Press
Historical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Ivanhoe
Penguin Classics
by Sir Walter Scott, edited by Graham Tulloch
from Penguin Classics
Historical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$12.00
Ivanhoe
by Sir Walter Scott, Illustrated by Edward A. Wilson
from Easton Press
Historical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in Leather Bound Collectible Books (Location: VIN-LEA)
Ivanhoe
Windermere Series 4
by Sir Walter Scott, illustrated by Milo Winter
from Rand McNally
Historical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Ivanhoe
Windermere Series 1
by Sir Walter Scott, illustrated by Milo Winter
from Rand McNally
Historical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Ivanhoe
Windermere Series 2
by Sir Walter Scott, illustrated by Milo Winter
from Rand McNally
Historical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Ivanhoe
Windermere Series 3
by Sir Walter Scott, illustrated by Milo Winter
from Rand McNally
Historical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
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