19th Century Literature

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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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19th Century Literature

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In-Stock Books & Materials

	20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, Translated by Lewis Page Mercier, edited by Allen Grove from Chartwell Books for 7th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $6.00 (1 in stock)
	Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Conan Doyle from Penguin Classics for 7th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $11.90
	Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain from Dover Publications Realistic Fiction for 7th-10th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $5.10
	Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain from Bantam Books Realistic Fiction for 7th-10th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $6.99
	Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Other Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from Canterbury Classics for 7th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $9.00 (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) $4.25
	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) $8.50
	Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass Penguin Classics by Lewis Carroll from Penguin Classics Fantasy for 5th-8th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $9.35
	Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Dover Thrift Editions by Lewis Carroll from Dover Publications Fantasy for 5th-8th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $4.25
	Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Illustrated by John Tenniel from SeaWolf Press Fantasy for 2nd-7th grade in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW) $6.76
	Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass Macmillan Classics by Lewis Carroll, illustrated by John Tenniel from Macmillan Fantasy for 7th-Adult in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC) $14.40 (1 in stock)
	Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne, Translated by George M. Towle Illustrated Fir from SeaWolf Press Adventure for 6th-10th grade in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW) $9.99
	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) $5.94
	Ben-Hur A Tale of the Christ Signet Classics by Lew Wallace from Signet Classics Historical Fiction for 7th-10th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $8.46
	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) $7.64
	Bulfinch's Medieval Mythology Dover Thrift Editions by Thomas Bulfinch from Dover Publications for 6th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $8.50
	Captains Courageous Signet Classics by Rudyard Kipling from Signet Classics Nautical Fiction for 7th-10th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $5.06
	Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling from Living Book Press Nautical Fiction for 7th-10th grade in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA) $7.64
	Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens from Bantam Books for 6th-10th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $3.95
	Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, illustrated by P.J. Lynch Unabridged from Candlewick Press Fantasy for 6th-10th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $16.99
	Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, illustrated by Robert Ingpen Unabridged from Palazzo Editions Limited Fantasy for 6th-10th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $24.99
	Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, illustrated by Roberto Innocenti Unabridged from Creative Editions Fantasy for 6th-10th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $35.00
	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) $14.45
	Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm by Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm, translated by Jack Zipes 3^rd edition from Bantam Books Fairy Tales, Fables, and Folklore for 7th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $21.25
	Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson from Little, Brown & Company for 7th-Adult in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN) $20.39
	Complete Tales of Uncle Remus by Joel Chandler Harris from Houghton Mifflin Animal Fantasy for 7th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $33.99
	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
	Escape from Slavery The Boyhood of Frederick Douglass in His Own Words by Frederick Douglass, edited and illustrated by Michael McCurdy, foreword by Coretta Scott King from Beautiful Feet Books for 6th-8th grade in Biographies (Location: BIO) $11.89 $7.20 (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) $10.95
	Frankenstein Everyman's Library by Mary Shelley from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Horror for 7th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $18.70
	Frankenstein Dover Thrift Editions by Mary Shelley from Dover Publications for 7th-10th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $5.10
	Golden Age by Kenneth Grahame, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish from SeaWolf Press for 6th-9th grade in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW) $6.76
	Golden Age by Kenneth Grahame, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish from Ten Speed Press for 6th-9th grade in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA) $6.40 (1 in stock)
	Gray Wolf and Other Stories by George MacDonald 2nd THUS from Eerdmans for 7th-12th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $14.45
	Great Expectations (abridged) Puffin Classics by Charles Dickens from Puffin Books Realistic Fiction for 7th-10th grade in Puffin Classics (Location: FIC-PUF) $6.79
	Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Andersen, Translated by Erik Christian Haugaard 1983 Anchor Books Edition from Anchor Books for 2nd-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $22.95
	His Last Bow by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 100th Anniversary from SeaWolf Press for 6th-Adult in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW) $8.49
	Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle from Dover Publications for 7th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $4.25
	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) $8.49
	Invisible Man by H. G. Wells, with an introduction by W. Warren Wagar and an afterword by Scott Westerfeld from Signet Classics Science Fiction for 7th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $5.06
	Jungle Books Signet Classics by Rudyard Kipling from Signet Classics Animal Stories for 4th-8th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $5.06
	Kidnapped Everyman's Library Children's Classics by Robert Louis Stevenson from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Action/Adventure for 4th-8th grade in Everyman's Library Children's Classics (Location: FIC-ELC) $18.70
	Kidnapped Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751 Scribner Illustrated Classics by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by N. C. Wyeth from Atheneum Historical Fiction for 7th-10th grade in Action & Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV) $11.60 (1 in stock)
	Kidnapped Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751 by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by N. C. Wyeth and Graham Oakley from Dilithium Press, Ltd. Historical Fiction for 7th-10th grade in Action & Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV) $12.00 (1 in stock)
	Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Louis Rhead from SeaWolf Press for 7th-10th grade in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW) $8.49
	Life of Our Lord Written for His Children During the Years 1846 to 1849 by Charles Dickens from Simon and Schuster for 7th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $13.60
	Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, Illustrated by Sidney Paget 100th Anniversary Edition from SeaWolf Press for 7th-Adult in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW) $9.31
	Nobody's Boy by Hector Malot, translated by Florence Crewe Jones, illustrated by Thelma Gooch and Johnny Gruelle from Inheritance Publications for 6th-9th grade in Inheritance Fiction (Location: FIC-WH03) $12.71
	Nobody's Girl by Hector Malot, translated by Florence Crewe Jones from Inheritance Publications for 6th-9th grade in Inheritance Fiction (Location: FIC-WH03) $14.41
	Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott, Illustrated by Jessie Wilcox Smith 150th Anniversary from SeaWolf Press Realistic Romantic Fiction for 4th-8th grade in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW) $10.95
	Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane from Bantam Books Historical Fiction for 7th-10th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $4.21
	Red-Headed League and The Adventure of the Speckled Band by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, illustrated by Paul Spina from Franklin Watts for 6th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $4.00 (1 in stock)
	Shropshire Lad by A. E. Housman, illustrated by Charles Mozley from Franklin Watts for 7th-12th grade in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC) $12.00 (1 in stock)
	Shropshire Lad The Living Library by A. E. Housman, Illustrated by Jeanne Edwards from World Publishing Company for 7th-12th grade in Vintage Poetry (Location: VIN-POET) $5.00 (1 in stock)
	Story of King Arthur and His Knights Signet Classics by Howard Pyle from Signet Classics Fairy Tales, Fables, and Legends for 7th-9th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $5.91 $2.80 (1 in stock)
	Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss, illustrated by Louis Rhead 200th Anniversary from SeaWolf Press Realistic Stories/Adventure for 5th-9th grade in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW) $11.95
	Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss, translated by Mary Godwin, introduction and notes by John Seelye from Penguin Classics for 5th-9th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $12.75
	Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss New edition from Signet Classics for 5th-9th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $5.09
	Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb, introduction by Marina Warner from Penguin Classics for 7th-12th grade in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $11.90 $6.40 (2 in stock)
	Tales from Shakespeare by Richard Armour from Living Book Press for 7th-12th grade in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT) $11.89
	Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe, illustrated by Arthur Rackham from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. for 7th-12th grade in Everyman's Library Children's Classics (Location: FIC-ELC) $18.70
	Time Machine by H. G. Wells from Dover Publications for 7th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $1.60 (1 in stock)
	Time Machine by H. G. Wells from Signet Classics Science Fiction/Dystopian Literature for 7th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $5.06
	Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain from SeaWolf Press for 7th-Adult in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW) $8.95
	Tom Sawyer Abroad and Other Stories by Mark Twain from Grosset & Dunlap for 7th-Adult in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC) $4.00 (1 in stock)
	Treasure Island by Sir Robert Louis Stevenson from Bantam Books for 6th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $5.09
	Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Louis Rhead from SeaWolf Press for 5th-9th grade in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW) $8.49
	Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Penguin Classics by Jules Verne, translated by David Coward from Puffin Books Science Fiction for 5th-8th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $11.90
	Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, edited by Joseph Pearce from Ignatius Press for 7th-9th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $9.95

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