• The Best George Eliot Books - Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot
  • The Best George Eliot Books - Adam Bede by George Eliot
  • The Best George Eliot Books - The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
  • The Best George Eliot Books - Middlemarch by George Eliot
  • The Best George Eliot Books - George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals by John Walter Cross

The Best George Eliot Books, recommended by Philip Davis

George Eliot is all but synonymous with Victorian realism; for D H Lawrence, she was the first novelist to start ‘putting all the action inside.’ Here, Philip Davis, author of The Transferred Life of George Eliot, selects the best books by or about one of the greatest novelists of all time: ‘If you want to read literature that sets out to create a holding ground for raw human material—for human struggles, difficulties, and celebrations—read George Eliot’

  • David Russell on The Victorian Essay - Selected Prose by Charles Lamb
  • David Russell on The Victorian Essay - Culture and Anarchy and Other Writings by Matthew Arnold
  • David Russell on The Victorian Essay - Selected Essays, Poems, and Other Writings by George Eliot
  • David Russell on The Victorian Essay - Studies in the History of the Renaissance by Walter Pater
  • David Russell on The Victorian Essay - The Hands of the Living God: An Account of a Psychoanalytic Treatment by Marion Milner

David Russell on The Victorian Essay

With the advent of the Victorian age, polite maxims of eighteenth-century essays in the Spectator were replaced by a new generation of writers who thought deeply—and playfully—about social relationships, moral responsibility, education and culture. Here, Oxford literary critic David Russell explores the distinct qualities that define the Victorian essay and recommends five of its greatest practitioners.

  • The Best Books by Wilkie Collins - Rambles Beyond Railways by Wilkie Collins
  • The Best Books by Wilkie Collins - The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
  • The Best Books by Wilkie Collins - The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
  • The Best Books by Wilkie Collins - Poor Miss Finch by Wilkie Collins
  • The Best Books by Wilkie Collins - Heart and Science by Wilkie Collins

The Best Books by Wilkie Collins, recommended by Jason Hall

Wilkie Collins, the sensationalist author and inventor of the detective novel, knew precisely how to “make ’em laugh, make ’em cry, make ’em wait”. Jason Hall, Victorian literature expert and editor of a new edition of Jezebel’s Daughter, chooses the five best books from Collins’s extensive oeuvre – and considers the voracious appetites and unorthodox lifestyle of this intriguing Englishman.