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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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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Bantam Classics
by Jules Verne, translated by Anthony Bonner
from Bantam Books
Science Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.99
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Windermere Readers #19
by Jules Verne, translated by Philip Schuyler Allen
1956 printing from Rand McNally
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (2 in stock)
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 of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
from Easton Press
for 10th-Adult
in Leather Bound Collectible Books (Location: VIN-LEA)
$29.00 (1 in stock)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
New Ed from University of California Press
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$15.95
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
from Penguin Classics
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.00
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
from Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain, edited by Mary R. Reichardt
from Ignatius Press
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$6.00 (2 in stock)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Oxford World's Classics
by Mark Twain, edited with an introduction and notes by Emory Elliott
2008 Reissue from Oxford University
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$3.50 (1 in stock)
Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Dover Thrift Editions
by Mark Twain
from Dover Publications
for 6th-10th grade
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.00
Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Puffin Classics
by Mark Twain
from Penguin Classics
Realistic Fiction for 6th-10th grade
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$10.00
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
Alexandre Dumas Three Musketeers Collection
Oxford World's Classics
by Alexandre Dumas
from Oxford University
Historical Fiction/Adventure for 9th-12th grade
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Penguin Classics
by Lewis Carroll
from Penguin Classics
Fantasy for 5th-8th grade
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$11.00
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 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)
Ambassadors
by Henry James
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
American Claimant / Pudd'nhead Wilson
from Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.00 (2 in stock)
Anna Karenina
Signet Classics
by Leo Tolstoy, translated by David Magarshack
from Signet Classics
Realistic Fiction for 11th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.95
Anna Karenina
by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
First Printing from Penguin Putnam
for 11th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$20.00
Annotated Alice
by Lewis Carroll
from Bramhall House
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$10.00 (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)
Around the World in Eighty Days
by Jules Verne, George M. Towle (Translator)
from Bantam Books
for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.95 $3.00 (1 in stock)
Around the World in Eighty Days
by Jules Verne, translated by William Butcher
Reprint from Oxford University
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$9.95
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
Ben-Hur
by Lew Wallace
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.00
Ben-Hur
Signet Classics
by Lew Wallace
from Signet Classics
Historical Fiction for 7th-10th grade
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$9.95
Billy Budd
Signet Classics
by Herman Melville
from Signet Classics
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.95
Billy Budd, Sailor, and Other Stories
by Herman Melville
from Bantam Books
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.95
Black Arrow
Dover Evergreen Classics
by Robert Louis Stevenson
from Dover Publications
Historical Fiction for 7th-10th grade
in Action & Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$5.99
Black Arrow
by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by N. C. Wyeth
from SeaWolf Press
Historical Fiction for 7th-10th grade
in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW)
$8.95
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
Brothers Karamazov
Signet Classics
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, translated by Constance Garnett, edited with an introduction by Manual Komroff
from Signet Classics
Russian Epic Novel for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.95
Brothers Karamazov
by Fyodor Dostoevsky (translation by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky)
Bicentennial from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
for 11th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$19.00
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)
Count of Monte Cristo
by Alexandre Dumas, translated, with an introduction and notes, by Robin Buss
from Penguin Classics
Realistic Fiction/Adventure for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$16.00
Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories
by Sarah Orne Jewett
from Signet Classics
for 11th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$6.95
Crime and Punishment
Signet Classics
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
from Signet Classics
Realistic Russian Novel for 11th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.95
Crime and Punishment
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (translation by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky)
Reprint from Vintage Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$18.00
Crime and Punishment
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
3rd edition from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Crime and Punishment
Oxford World's Classics
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (translation by Jessie Coulson), introduction and notes by Richard Peace
2008 Reissue from Oxford University
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Crime and Punishment
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, unknown translator
from Wordsworth Classics
for 11th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
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)
Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories
by Leo Tolstoy
from Vintage Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$17.95
Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories
by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Aylmer Maude and J.D. Duff
from Signet Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$6.95
Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories
by Leo Tolstoy
from Vintage Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$10.00
Deerslayer
Leatherstocking Tales #1
by James Fenimore Cooper
from Penguin Classics
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$16.00
Deerslayer
Leatherstocking Tales #1
by James Fenimore Cooper, illustrated by Louis Rhead & Frank Schoonover
from Blue Ribbon Books, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$14.00 (1 in stock)
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
by Robert Louis Stevenson
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.95
Dracula
by Bram Stoker
from Signet Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.95
Emma
Penguin Classics
by Jane Austen
from Penguin Classics
Romantic Realistic Fiction for 8th-12th grade
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$9.00 $5.00 (1 in stock)
Emma
Everyman's Library
by Jane Austen
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Romantic Realistic Fiction for 8th-12th grade
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$26.00
Emma
by Jane Austen
from Oxford University
Romantic Realistic Fiction for 9th-12th grade
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.95
Emma
by Jane Austen, Illustrated by Hugh Thomson
200th Anniversary from SeaWolf Press
Romantic Realistic Fiction for 8th-12th grade
in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW)
$12.99
Eugenie Grandet
by Honore de Balzac, translated by Ellen Marriage, introduction by Richard Aldington, illustrations by Rene ben Sussan
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Fathers and Sons
by Ivan Turgenev
from Walter J. Black, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in Walter J. Black Classics Club (Location: VIN-LITWJB)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Five Weeks in a Balloon
by Jules Verne, translated by William Lackland and illustrated by Edouard Riou
Illustrated Fir from SeaWolf Press
for 5th-10th grade
in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW)
$9.95
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
Dover Thrift Editions
by Mary Shelley
from Dover Publications
for 7th-10th grade
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$6.00
Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley
from Penguin Putnam
Horror for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$10.00
From the Earth to the Moon
by Jules Verne, Translated by Louis Mercer & Eleanor King
Illustrated 1874 from SeaWolf Press
for 9th-Adult
in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW)
$11.95
Gilded Age
by Mark Twain, Charles Dudley Warner
from Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Great Expectations
Signet Classics
by Charles Dickens
from Signet Classics
Realistic Fiction for 10th-12th grade
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.95
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
from Penguin Classics
Realistic Fiction for 10th-12th grade
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$11.00
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 Dover Publications
Realistic Fiction for 10th-12th grade
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$3.50 (1 in stock)
Great Expectations (abridged)
Puffin Classics
by Charles Dickens
from Puffin Books
Realistic Fiction for 7th-10th grade
in Puffin Classics (Location: FIC-PUF)
$7.99
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)
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
House of the Seven Gables
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Hunchback of Notre Dame
Signet Classics
by Victor Hugo
from Signet Classics
Realistic Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.95
In His Steps
by Charles Monroe Sheldon
from Hendrickson Publishers
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.50 (1 in stock)
Inheritance
Penguin Classics
by Louisa May Alcott
from Penguin Classics
Realistic Romantic Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$15.00
Innocents Abroad
Signet Classics
by Mark Twain
from Signet Classics
Travel books/Social Commentary for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.95
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, 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
Israel Potter
by Herman Melville
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$16.00
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
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
Jane Austen Hardcover Collection
Everyman's Library
by Jane Austen
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$150.40
Jane Austen Softcover Collection
Penguin Classics
by Jane Austen
from Penguin Putnam
Romantic Realistic Fiction for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$48.80
Jane Eyre
Everyman's Library
by Charlotte Bronte
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Realistic Romantic Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$22.40
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë
from Penguin Classics
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.20
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