I recently contributed to a marvellous website https://bookdna.com that promotes authors and their books in various ingenious ways in order to help readers find fiction they will love. Its founder, Ben Fox, says that book marketing is ‘broken’ – I think we can all agree there – and that authors deserve a better book site. Part of his unique approach is to ask authors to share five of their favourite books that connect to their own in some way and say why they love each one. Fox says he was inspired by the little notes you sometimes find in book shops that are written by staff about their favourite books.
So I created a list of 5 books that I have thoroughly enjoyed and that are similar in some ways to Elizabeth and Ruth. The post is titled The Best Books about Victorian Writers and the Victorian Underworld.
Always difficult to choose just five! However I do definitely recommend the books I’ve chosen so I thought I would post the list here – plus a mention of a couple that nearly made the list.
- The Household Stacey Halls
This novel is probably most closely related to Elizabeth and Ruth. Elizabeth Gaskell wrote to Charles Dickens about Pasley because of his involvement with the‘house for fallen women’ funded by Angela Burdett-Coutts. Urania Cottage offered a refuge for prostitutes, petty thieves and the destitute, and the chance of a new life – but only if they were prepared to leave everything behind. In this gripping portrayal, Halls skilfully depicts women from different classes. Josephine is a working-class woman who comes straight from prison whereas Angela Burdett-Coutts, the richest woman in London, is imprisoned in a different way by her wealth. A great read – beautifully observed, unsentimental and absorbing.
- Arthur and George Julian Barnes
A literary mystery featuring Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, in a real case in which he proved an accused man innocent. The trial was in 1903 but the novel exposes the legacy of Victorian colonialism with supreme skill. It unfolds against a society divided by racial and class prejudice. George Edalji, born to a Parsee father and an Irish mother, was imprisoned for the brutal mutilations of farm animals that took place in Wyrley.
I loved the portrayal of the two protagonists. Arthur is convinced of George’s innocence and dedicates himself to his cause. George is particularly moving, maintaining his integrity and dignity throughout. The investigation explores the lives of these two very different men with compassion and wit while ultimately celebrating their courage and generosity.
- Fingersmith Sarah Waters
I am a big fan of Sarah Waters (when is she going to write another book?) and this is one novel that I can truly say kept me up all night until I’d finished all 548 pages, despite a headache and sore eyes! A thrilling tale of deception, betrayal and ingenuity, Fingersmith tells the story of two women from very different social classes. Susan Trinder is a young thief, while Maud Lilly is from an aristocratic family. In the course of the novel their intertwined history is exposed, along with a conspiracy to steal Maud’s fortune. The scenes of Victorian London are extraordinarily vivid while the central love story is a Gothic romance. But I especially admire the multiple, breathtaking plot twists. That kept me hooked all the way to the end!
Not about a Victorian writer, but definitely about the Victorian underworld!
- The Crimson Petal and the White Michel Faber
From the brilliant first line to the ambiguous ending this novel kept me gripped throughout its 800 + pages. Like Fingersmith, it plumbs the secret depths of Victorian Society uncovering pornography, mental illness, prostitution, the evils of marriage and inheritance in gloriously rich prose. It also explores the lives of two very different women, Agnes and Sugar. They are both dependent on Wiliam Rachkam, reluctant heir to a perfume business. Agnes represents the Victorian ideal of naive and refined femininity, whereas Sugar is a prostitute who is writing an erotic revenge novel in which all clients are gruesomely murdered. This novel has a surreal and baroque quality which I loved and a structure that manages to weave all the disparate elements together into an engrossing story.
- The Master Colm Toibin
Another novel with a great opening line, ‘Sometimes in the night he dreamed about the dead’, The Master is a subtle and complex portrayal of the Victorian writer Henry James. It begins at a moment in his career when, although lauded as a novelist, he has failed as a dramatist. He retreats from public life, buying a house in Rye, Sussex where he lives alone, haunted by people from his past and preoccupied with the details of the Oscar Wilde case. I loved the exploration of creativity and the consequences of dedicating yourself to the creative life, especially in terms of the uncomfortable relationship between artistic integrity and public response. This is a virtuoso depiction of social and psychological repression, the pain of unacknowledged sexuality and the cost of art.
So, five great books on a similar theme – the suppressed and oppressed elements of Victorian society. The books I debated about were Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood which I read a long time ago and very much enjoyed. A powerful subtle novel that plays provocatively with the lines between guilt and innocence and Burial Rites by Hannah Kent – a wonderful debut about the last woman to be hung in Iceland. Strictly speaking not Victorian since it’s set in Iceland in 1829, but still a mesmerising account of the oppressive and biased nature of the 19th century legal system. Next on my list to read is Mr and Mrs Charles Dickens by Annie Elliot I’m sure there are many more. Feel free to tell me about them!
