Victorian literature refers to English writing during the time Queen Victoria was queen (1837–1901). During the Victorian era, the novel became the most popular type of writing in English. Books from this time show major changes in many parts of English life, including scientific discoveries, economic growth, technological progress, changes in social classes, and the role of religion. The number of new novels published each year grew from 100 at the start of the period to 1,000 by the end. Well-known novelists from this time include Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, the three Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë), Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), Thomas Hardy, and Rudyard Kipling.
The Romantic period focused on personal feelings and imagination, while the Victorian era saw writers focus more on problems in society. Writers like Thomas Carlyle highlighted how the Industrial Revolution made people feel less human, a time Carlyle called the "Mechanical Age." This awareness influenced other authors, such as poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning and novelists Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy. Barrett Browning wrote about child labor, which helped her succeed in a time when women writers often used male names. Dickens used humor and a friendly tone to discuss issues like unequal wealth. Hardy used his novels to ask questions about religion and how society was organized.
Poetry and theatre were also important during the Victorian era. Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson were the most famous poets of the time. Theatre did not produce major works until the late 1800s. Notable playwrights of the era included Gilbert and Sullivan, George Bernard Shaw, and Oscar Wilde.
Prose fiction
Charles Dickens is the most well-known Victorian novelist. He focused on creating strong characters, and his work was very popular during his time. He is still one of the most widely read authors in the world. Dickens began his writing career with Sketches by Boz (1833–1836), a collection of short stories published in newspapers and magazines. His first novel, The Pickwick Papers (1836–1837), was a huge success when he was only twenty-five. All of his later books were also very popular. The humor in The Pickwick Papers had a sharp, critical tone, which appeared in many of his other works. In the early 1800s, most novels were published in three volumes, but The Pickwick Papers was released in twenty parts between April 1836 and November 1837. Readers eagerly awaited each new part, which often included surprises like new characters or plot twists. Dickens worked hard to create stories that entertained people while also addressing social issues and the struggles of the poor. His most important works include Oliver Twist (1837–1839), Nicholas Nickleby (1838–1839), A Christmas Carol (1843), Dombey and Son (1846–1848), David Copperfield (1849–1850), Bleak House (1852–1853), Little Dorrit (1855–1857), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), and Great Expectations (1860–1861). His later novels became darker, reflecting a trend in Victorian writing.
William Makepeace Thackeray was Dickens’ main competitor during the first half of Queen Victoria’s reign. His writing style was similar to Dickens’, but he used sharper, more critical humor. Thackeray often wrote about middle-class society, unlike Dickens, who focused more on the poor. His most famous books are The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844) and Vanity Fair (1847–1848). These works are examples of a popular Victorian genre: historical novels that describe recent events.
The three Brontë sisters—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—produced important works during this time, though critics did not at first recognize their value. Jane Eyre (1847), written by Charlotte Brontë, is a major Victorian novel with Gothic themes inspired by earlier Gothic writers. It shares features with Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), such as dark, lonely mansions and supernatural elements. Alongside Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen, Jane Eyre is considered one of the greatest English novels. Emily Brontë’s only novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), is a Gothic Romantic work that explores class, myths, and gender from a woman’s perspective. Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) is written in a realistic style and is often seen as the first major feminist novel.
Elizabeth Gaskell wrote important books during this period, including Mary Barton (1848), Cranford (1851–1853), North and South (1854–1855), and Wives and Daughters (1864–1866).
George Eliot (the pen name used by Mary Ann Evans) also wrote major works during this time, including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871–1872), and Daniel Deronda (1876). Like the Brontës, she used a male name to publish her books.
Later in this period, Thomas Hardy’s most famous novels are Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). Hardy is known for showing both the beauty of rural life and the challenges of urban living, which were central to the Victorian era.
Other important novelists of this time include Anthony Trollope (1815–1882), Wilkie Collins (1824–1889), George Meredith (1828–1909), and George Gissing (1857–1903).
Poetry
Robert Browning (1812–1889) and Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892) were important poets during the Victorian era in England. Thomas Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life, but he did not publish a full collection until 1898. The poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) was published after his death in 1918. Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) was also a significant literary figure of the time, known for his poems and writings about literature. The early poetry of W. B. Yeats was published during Queen Victoria’s reign. Major theatrical works were not created until the late 1800s, including comic operas by Gilbert and Sullivan in the 1870s, plays by George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) in the 1890s, and Oscar Wilde’s (1854–1900) play The Importance of Being Earnest.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning first became familiar with each other’s work through their poetry. Both wrote poems that were influenced by their relationship. Matthew Arnold and Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote poems that connected the themes of nature found in Romantic poetry with the styles of poetry from the early 20th century. However, Hopkins’s work was not published until 1918. Arnold’s writing included ideas that later poets would explore, while Hopkins used poetic forms from Old English works like Beowulf.
Victorian literature often focused on the past, including both classical and medieval stories from England. This interest began with Letitia Elizabeth Landon and her poetry. People of the Victorian era enjoyed stories about brave knights and hoped to bring back some of the noble manners of the past for people in England and the British Empire. A clear example of this is Alfred Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, which combined stories about King Arthur, especially those from Thomas Malory, with modern ideas. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of artists, also used myths and folklore in their work. Dante Gabriel Rossetti was considered the leading poet of the group at the time, though his sister Christina is now seen by scholars as a more skilled poet. Another poet, Augusta Webster, focused on future issues and wrote about the roles of women in society.
Drama
In drama, farces, musical burlesques, extravaganzas, and comic operas were popular alongside Shakespeare plays and serious works by playwrights such as James Planché and Thomas William Robertson. In 1855, the German Reed Entertainments started improving the quality of musical theatre in Britain, which had previously included inappropriate content. This effort led to the creation of famous comic operas by Gilbert and Sullivan. Later, in the 1890s, the first Edwardian musical comedies appeared. The first play to reach 500 consecutive performances was Our Boys, a London comedy by H. J. Byron, which opened in 1875. This record was later broken in 1892 by Charley's Aunt, written by Brandon Thomas, which achieved 1,362 performances. After W. S. Gilbert, Oscar Wilde became the leading poet and dramatist of the late Victorian period. Wilde’s plays are more similar to those of Edwardian dramatists like George Bernard Shaw, whose career began in the 1890s. Wilde’s 1895 play The Importance of Being Earnest is considered his greatest work. It humorously criticized the aristocracy while showing great skill in wit and clever ideas. The play remains very popular today. Plays by Arthur Wing Pinero have been performed again in recent years.
Children's literature
During the Victorian era, people worked to end child labor and required children to attend school, which helped create the idea of childhood. As children learned to read, books written for young people became very popular. Well-known writers like Charles Dickens wrote books for children, such as A Child's History of England, while new authors focused mainly on writing for children. These authors included Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Anna Sewell, who wrote Black Beauty, and R. M. Ballantyne, who wrote The Coral Island. Other authors, like Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island) and Anthony Hope (The Prisoner of Zenda), wrote books for adults, but their stories are now often read by children. Other types of children's books included funny or playful poems, such as Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky." Stories about school life, like Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes and Stalky & Co. by Rudyard Kipling, became famous.
These books were not always created to entertain children, but as illustrations became more common, children began to enjoy reading and learn lessons in a fun way. Reading for pleasure became accepted, and fairy tales and folk tales grew in popularity. Many authors collected folk tales with different themes, allowing children to read about a wide range of topics. Books and magazines were often written separately for boys and girls. Stories for girls usually focused on home life and family, while stories for boys centered on adventures.
Nonfiction
The Victorian era was a time when science made important progress. The Victorians aimed to describe and classify all of nature. Many writings from this time are not considered literature, but one book, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, is still well-known today. Darwin’s theory of evolution in this book challenged many ideas that Victorians had about themselves and their role in the world. Although it took time to be widely accepted, the theory greatly influenced later thoughts and writings. Thomas Henry Huxley, a contemporary of Darwin, helped spread Darwin’s ideas through his own writings.
Other non-fiction works from this era also had a major impact. John Stuart Mill wrote about logic, economics, freedom, and utilitarianism. Thomas Carlyle’s books, such as The French Revolution: A History and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History, greatly influenced political thinking. Thomas Babington Macaulay’s writings on English history helped shape the Whig narrative, which was a major view in historical studies for many years. John Ruskin wrote influential books about art and its history, supporting artists like J. M. W. Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites. John Henry Newman’s writings, including Apologia Pro Vita Sua, sparked debates in the Church of England after he converted to Catholicism.
Several important reference works were published during this time. The Oxford English Dictionary became the most significant historical dictionary of the English language. Later in the Victorian era, the Dictionary of National Biography and the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica were also published.
In the United States, Henry David Thoreau and Susan Fenimore Cooper’s Rural Hours (1850) influenced Victorian nature writing. In the UK, Philip Gosse and Sarah Bowdich Lee were popular nature writers early in the Victorian era. The Illustrated London News, founded in 1842, was the first illustrated weekly newspaper in the world. It often included articles and pictures about nature. As the 19th century progressed, books, articles, and illustrations about nature became widely read by an urban population growing in size.
The Gothic tales of the late 19th century were the first examples of fantasy fiction. These stories often featured larger-than-life characters, such as Sherlock Holmes, the famous detective, Sexton Blake, and others like Dracula, Edward Hyde, and The Invisible Man. Gothic literature blends romance and horror to excite and frighten readers. Common elements in Gothic novels include foreign monsters, ghosts, curses, hidden rooms, and witchcraft. These stories often take place in castles, monasteries, or cemeteries, though the monsters sometimes appear in cities like London. Gothic stories spanned the 18th and 19th centuries.
The influence of Victorian literature
Writers from the United States and British colonies such as Australia, New Zealand, and Canada were influenced by British literature and are often considered part of Victorian literature. However, they were slowly creating their own unique styles. Canadian writers during this time included Grant Allen, Susanna Moodie, and Catherine Parr Traill. Australian writers included poets Adam Lindsay Gordon and Banjo Paterson, who wrote the poem "Waltzing Matilda." New Zealand writers included Thomas Bracken and Frederick Edward Maning. In the United States, important writers of this period included Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Henry James, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, and Walt Whitman.
A challenge in classifying "Victorian literature" is the difference between early works from this time and later works that shared more similarities with the Edwardian period. Many writers from the Victorian era created important works during Queen Victoria's reign, but their writing style is often seen as more similar to the Edwardian period. Writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells, Bram Stoker, H. Rider Haggard, Jerome K. Jerome, and Joseph Conrad wrote significant works during Victoria's time, but their writing style is frequently regarded as Edwardian.