Reader discussion: New Grub Street

Victorian literature

By HollowFinch

For the last couple years I’ve been really into Victorian books—stuff written from 1837 to 1901, during Queen Victoria’s reign. Most lists are usually just British novels, but I’ve also stumbled on a few American writers that feel like they could fit in that “Victorian” vibe. Like Henry James, for instance—he spent more than 20 years in England, so I can’t help thinking he belongs in the conversation. This page is basically for talking about Victorian novels, like what people find so appealing about them and why you keep coming back, and also to swap recommendations. I’m not really a Dickens person, but I still can’t stop reading Henry James, the Brontë sisters, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot… and yeah, I hope a bunch of you jump in and post :-)

Have you read George Meredith?

By AcarusBrisk

George Meredith is one of those Victorian writers who seems really interesting but then somehow gets left behind. He was probably too weird and experimental for people back then, and maybe a bit too “Victorian” for us now. He’s kind of hard to pin down—like he’s always out of sync with whatever category you want to put him in. And Oscar Wilde’s line about him (“who can define him…”) is hilarious, but also weirdly dead accurate. That “he can do anything, except tell a story” vibe really feels like it matches how Meredith writes. Even that other bit about him not being on speaking terms with realism feels spot on. I read three of his novels ages ago in uni. My English was… not great, to put it mildly, and his prose was so packed and heavy it was way beyond me at the time. I honestly don’t remember much from them, except that I struggled. But I’ve been rereading Virginia Woolf’s essays—she knew Meredith personally, he was basically a family friend—and her essay “The Novels of George Meredith” (from *The Second Common Reader*) made me want to go back and try again, this time with more confidence (or at least more stubbornness). I started *Diana of the Crossways* and wow, it opens with what people call one of the hardest, densest first chapters in 19th-century prose. Like… okay then 😂. I’ve got Gissing waiting in the wings too. It feels interesting to reread Victorians with modern attitudes in your head—reading between the lines critically, but also trying to actually enjoy the writing. Also, Woolf ends up giving him this compliment that’s kind of rare: that he basically treats the reader as someone capable of genuine, disinterested curiosity about human behavior, like we’re not just stuck watching other people as entertainment. It’s a really flattering idea, and it makes you stop and grin for a second.