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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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Active Filters: North American Literature, 11th grade (Ages 16-17), In-Stock Books & Materials
Abraham Lincoln: Great Speeches
Dover Thrift Editions
by Abraham Lincoln & John Grafton, editor
from Dover Publications
Political Philosophy for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.00
Abraham Lincoln: Selected Speeches and Writings
by Abraham Lincoln, introduction by Gore Vidal
from Library of America
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$18.95
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)
$9.00
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)
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)
Autobiography of Charles G. Finney
by Charles G. Finney
from Bethany House
Autobiography for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$18.00
Autobiography of Charles G. Finney
by Charles G. Finney
from Bethany House
Autobiography for 9th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Ben-Hur
Dover Thrift Editions
by Lew Wallace
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.00
Ben-Hur
Dover Thrift Editions
by Lew Wallace
from HarperCollins
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$16.99
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
Bulfinch's Greek and Roman Mythology
Dover Thrift Editions
by Thomas Bulfinch
from Dover Publications
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$6.00
Bulfinch's Medieval Mythology
Dover Thrift Editions
by Thomas Bulfinch
from Dover Publications
for 6th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$10.00
Bulfinch's Mythology: A Modern Abridgment
by Thomas Bulfinch
from Laurel-Leaf Books
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.99
Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Chivalry
by Thomas Bulfinch
from Living Book Press
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$12.99
Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable
by Thomas Bulfinch
from Living Book Press
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$15.99
Bulfinch's Mythology: The Legends of Charlemagne
by Thomas Bulfinch
from Living Book Press
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$11.99
Celebrated Jumping Frog and Other Stories
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Mark Twain
from Reader's Digest
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Civil War Hospital Sketches
by Louisa May Alcott
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.95 $3.50 (1 in stock)
Civil War Stories
Dover Thrift Editions
by Ambrose Bierce
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.00
Classic Slave Narratives
by Henry Louis Gates, ed.
Reissue from Signet Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.95 $5.00 (1 in stock)
Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
by Edgar Allan Poe
from Modern Library
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$25.00
Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
by Emily Dickinson
from Little, Brown & Company
for 7th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$23.99
Complete Tales of Uncle Remus
by Joel Chandler Harris
from Houghton Mifflin
Animal Fantasy for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$39.99
Complete Tales of Uncle Remus
by Joel Chandler Harris, retold by Julius Lester, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
from Dial Press
Animal Fantasy for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$50.00
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
Cruel as the Grave
by Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
from M. A. Donohue & Company
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
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)
Favorite Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$5.00
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 American Short Stories
by Wallace & Mary Stegner, editors
from Dell Publishing
Realistic Fiction for 9th-12th grade
in Short Stories (Location: LIT-ANTH)
$8.99
Hazard of New Fortunes
by William Dean Howells
New edition from Modern Library
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$16.00
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)
House of the Seven Gables
Signet Classics
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
from Signet Classics
Fantasy for 9th-12th grade
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.95
Humorous Stories and Sketches
by Mark Twain
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.50
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)
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
by Harriet Jacobs
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.00 $3.00 (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
Israel Potter
by Herman Melville
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$16.00
Joan of Arc
by Mark Twain
from Ignatius Press
Biography for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$18.95 $12.00 (1 in stock)
Journals of Lewis & Clark
Signet Classics
by John Bakeless, editor
from Signet Classics
Primary Source Documents for 9th-Adult
in Lewis & Clark Expedition (1801-1803) (Location: HISA-19L&C)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Journals of Lewis & Clark
Signet Classics
by John Bakeless, editor
from Signet Classics
Primary Source Documents for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.95
Last of the Mohicans
Leatherstocking Tales #2
by James Fenimore Cooper
Reprint from Penguin Classics
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$13.00
Last of the Mohicans
Leatherstocking Tales #2
by James Fenimore Cooper
Reprint from Signet Classics
Realistic Action/Adventure Novel for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$6.95
Last of the Mohicans
Leatherstocking Tales #2
by James Fenimore Cooper, illustrated by N.C. Wyeth
from Charles Scribner's Sons
Realistic Action/Adventure Novel for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$16.00 (1 in stock)
Last of the Mohicans
Leatherstocking Tales #2
by James Fenimore Cooper
from Charles Scribner's Sons
Realistic Action/Adventure Novel for 9th-Adult
in Scribner Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SCRIB)
$24.99
Last of the Mohicans
Leatherstocking Tales #2
by James Fenimore Cooper, Illustrated by N. C. Wyeth
from SeaWolf Press
Realistic Action/Adventure Novel for 9th-Adult
in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW)
$11.95
Last of the Mohicans
Leatherstocking Tales #2
by James Fenimore Cooper, introduction by A.B. Guthrie, Jr.
Reprint from Bantam Books
Realistic Action/Adventure Novel for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Leatherstocking Tales - Penguin Collection
by James Fenimore Cooper
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Leaves of Grass
by Walt Whitman
from SeaWolf Press
for 11th-Adult
in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW)
$11.95
Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Washington Irving
from Reader's Digest
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.00 (2 in stock)
Lewis and Clark Expedition - 3-volume Set
by Meriwether Lewis
from J.B. Lippincott Co.
Primary Source Documents for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$32.00 (1 in stock)
Life on the Mississippi
Signet Classics
by Mark Twain
from Signet Classics
Autobiography for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.95
Little Women
by Lousia May Alcott
from Penguin Putnam
Realistic Romantic Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$10.00 $6.00 (4 in stock)
Long Fatal Love Chase
by Louisa May Alcott
First Thus from Dell Publishing
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.99
Looking Backward
Dover Thrift Editions
by Edward Bellamy
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.00
Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal
from Macmillan
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Poetry (Location: VIN-POET)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Moby-Dick
Signet Classics
by Herman Melville
from Signet Classics
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.95
Moby-Dick
Everyman's Library
by Herman Melville
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$32.00
Moby-Dick
by Herman Melville
from Penguin Putnam
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$16.00
Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories
Dover Thrift Editions
by Mark Twain
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.00
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Dover Thrift Editions
by Frederick Douglass
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.50
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Copper Lodge Library
by Frederick Douglass, annotated by Stephanie B. Meter
from Classical Conversations
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$12.00
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave
by Frederick Douglass & Harriet Jacobs
from Modern Library
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$6.95
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave
by Frederick Douglass
from Signet Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.95 $3.50 (2 in stock)
Omoo
by Herman Melville
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$10.95
On Slavery and the Civil War
Dover Thrift Editions
by Frederick Douglass
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$2.00
Oregon Trail
Penguin Classics
by Francis Parkman Jr.
from Penguin Classics
Historical Non-fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$16.00
Oregon Trail
by Francis Parkman, Jr., illustrated by Maynard Dixon
from Heritage Press
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Pathfinder
Leatherstocking Tales #3
by James Fenimore Cooper
from Penguin Classics
Realistic Fiction for 9th-12th grade
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$15.00
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
by Mark Twain
from Living Book Press
Biography for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$17.99
Pioneers
Leatherstocking Tales #4
by James Fenimore Cooper
from Signet Classics
Realistic Fiction for 9th-12th grade
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.95
Pioneers
Leatherstocking Tales #4
by James Fenimore Cooper
Reprint from Penguin Classics
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$15.00
Portable Edgar Allan Poe
by Edgar Allan Poe
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$22.00
Prairie
Leatherstocking Tales #5
by J. Fenimore Cooper
Trade Paperback Edition from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$15.00
Prince and the Pauper
Signet Classics
by Mark Twain
from Signet Classics
Historical Fiction for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.95
Prince and the Pauper
by Mark Twain, illustrated by Frank Merrill
from Reader's Digest
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Pudd'nhead Wilson
by Mark Twain
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.00
Ramona
by Helen Jackson
from Little, Brown & Company
for 9th-12th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$14.00 (1 in stock)
Red Badge of Courage
by Stephen Crane
from Penguin Classics
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$10.00
Red Badge of Courage
by Stephen Crane
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.00
Revival Lectures
by Charles G. Finney
from Fleming H Revell Co.
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Rise of Silas Lapham
by William Dean Howells
Reissue from Notgrass Company
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.95 $4.50 (1 in stock)
Roughing It
by Mark Twain
from SeaWolf Press
for 9th-Adult
in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW)
$15.95
Scarlet Letter
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
from Pocket Books
Realistic Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.99
Scarlet Letter
Dover Thrift Editions
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
from Dover Publications
Realistic Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$6.00
Scarlet Letter
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.00
Scarlet Letter
Copper Lodge Library
by Nathaniel Hawthorne, annotated by Stephanie B. Meter
from Classical Conversations
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$17.80
Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson
Dover Thrift Editions
by Emily Dickinson
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$3.00
Selected Tales and Sketches of Nathaniel Hawthorne
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
from Penguin Putnam
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$13.00
Self-Reliance & Other Essays
from CreateSpace
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.99
Self-Reliance and Essays on the Nature of Man
Copper Lodge Library
by Ralph Waldo Emerson, annotated by Stephanie B. Meter
from Classical Conversations
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$14.00
Self-Reliance and Other Essays
Dover Thrift Editions
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.00 $2.50 (1 in stock)
Sketch Book
by Washington Irving, illustrated by James G. Teason
from Fountain Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Story Cube Collection
by Stephen Crane
from Gamewright Games
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Tales of Mystery and Imagination
by Edgar Allan Poe, illustrated by Arthur Rackham
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 7th-12th grade
$22.00
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