Books and Things 38.8K subscribers · Oct 26, 2017

Underrated Books by Well-Known Victorian Authors #victober

Reviews14

It's one of my favorite things by Oscar Wilde and a really brilliant, really interesting, really feminist play with a lot of really interesting messages and a really interesting look at reputation and women in the Victorian period.

Daniel DerondaGeorge Eliot
Loved it

Daniel Deronda is really underrated in comparison and I really like Daniel Deronda and would really highly recommend it. It deals very much with issues of what it was like to be Jewish in the 19th century, which is not something that is dealt with in that many Victorian novels.

Desperate RemediesThomas Hardy
Loved it

This has just like 2000 ratings on Goodreads but it is so good and it definitely needs much more attention than it gets. It was Thomas Hardy's first novel and it's very dramatic, it's a great page-turner of a Victorian novel.

Dombey and SonCharles Dickens
Loved it

This is much better than A Tale of Two Cities and better than like all Dickens books apart from Our Mutual Friend. This is a thoroughly wonderful book.

It is the best book ever written and very good and my favorite novel and I would highly recommend it. It's a brilliant book about Victorian London, about class and money and morality and deception.

It's a really thoroughly interesting book, a very interesting exploration of religion and self identity and relationships and surrogate families and the kind of families that people build from chance encounters. Really brilliant and I would highly recommend it.

ShirleyCharlotte Brontë
Loved it

Shirley is another great book and one I would highly recommend. It's a bit more industrial than the rest of Brontë's novels which is really interesting, and it's a really interesting book very interesting in terms of gender.

The WoodlandersThomas Hardy
Loved it

This is a thoroughly brilliant book, absolutely one of my favorite Hardy's. It is really brilliant, really moving, really poignant and definitely a wonderful read.

It has I think under 3000 ratings on Goodreads but I really enjoyed it. It's quite a dramatic, quite pacey, a bit more sensation-less than some of Thomas Hardy's other novels... really interesting and definitely worth the read.

VilletteCharlotte Brontë
Loved it

Villette is one of my all-time favorite Victorian novels, one of my all-time favorite novels. It's absolutely brilliant and I think if you're someone that likes Jane Eyre but find certain things about it a little bit problematic or a little bit irritating then Villette is definitely one for you.