The Victorian period 1832 - 1900

1. Setting the scene

• Although Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 to 1901, in literature,  this period starts with the death of Sir Walter Scott in 1832 and goes up to 1914.

• It was a time of success, prosperity and imperial expansion, but things were not easy at first and there were many political and social problems:

• The Corn laws: It led to an expansion of British wheat farming and to high bread prices. It wasn’t until 1846 that they were totally repealed.

• The Chartist movement: they asked for social and political reforms. Their demands were:  

• Institution of a secret ballot

• General elections be held annually

• Members of Parliament not be required to own property

• MPs be paid a salary

• Electoral districts of equal size

• Universal male suffrage

• Conditions of the working class were very bad and child labour persisted throughout the period.

• During her reign, the population grew from two million to six and a half million and the cities grew bigger.

• The Great Exhibition of 1851 was the first international exhibition of manufactured goods. It was held in Hyde park at Crystal Palace and became the high point of this worldwide success.

• From 1950 on, there were some events that began to show the end of this successful period:

• The Crimean war (1854-6). It put in evidence its military incompetence. It was also the first time that a war was reported everyday in the newspapers.

• The Indian Mutiny (1857). It showed tha things were not going well in the colonies.

• in 1859 the beliefs of the age were questioned in the Theory of Evolution by Charles Darwin.

• In 1861, Prince Albert died. The polititians who ruled the country were either William Gladstone or Benjamin Disraeli.  

• The problems of the Victorian age increased: it was an age of great contrast. The working classes were poor and lived in terrible conditions and the middle classes grew richer and comfortable. On the surface everything seemed to be all right but below it, it was another story...

2. English literature.

Victorian novelists.

1. Charles Dickens.
2. Elizabeth Gaskell.
3. Brontë sisters.
4. George Eliot.
5. William Makepeace Thackeray.
6. Wilkie Collins.
7. Arthur Conan Doyle.
8. Thomas Hardy.
   

1. Lord Tennyson.

• Biography and works.
• In Memorian A.H.H.
• The Charge of the Light Brigade.

1. Robert Browning.

• Biography.
• Porphyria's Lover
  

1. Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

• Biography
• How do I love thee
  

1. Edward Lear.

• Limericks from A book of Nonsense
• How to write a  Limerick
  

1. Oscar Wilde.
2. Robert Louis Stevenson.
3. Rudyard Kipling.
4. Lewis Carroll.
5. H.G Wells.

1. Nathaniel Hawthorne.
2. Herman Melville.
3. Mark Twain.
   

1. Walt Whitman.
2. Emily Dickinson.
   

• A tale of two cities
• Oliver Twist
• The Pickwick Papers
• A Christmas Carol
• Hard Times
• Great Expectations

• Cranford
• North and South 
  

• Jane Eyre

• Wuthering Heights

• The  Tenant of Wildfeld Hall  
  

• Middlemarch

• Vanity Fair

• The Woman in White
• The Moonstone

•  Sherlock Holmes

• Far from The Madding Crowd
• Tess of the D'urbervilles
• Jude the Obscure

• The Importance of Being Earnest 
  
• Lady Windermere's fan
• The Picture of Dorian Gray     

• Treasure Island
• Kidnapped
• The strange case of Doctor Jekill and Mr Hyde

• The jungle book

•  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• Through the looking glass

•  The time machine
• The invisible man

• Moby Dick

• The Scarlet letter
  

• The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer