Best of
Victorian

1855

Little Dorrit


Charles Dickens - 1855
    As Arthur soon discovers, the dark shadow of the prison stretches far beyond its walls to affect the lives of many, from the kindly Mr Panks, the reluctant rent-collector of Bleeding Heart Yard, and the tipsily garrulous Flora Finching, to Merdle, an unscrupulous financier, and the bureaucratic Barnacles in the Circumlocution Office. A masterly evocation of the state and psychology of imprisonment, Little Dorrit is one of the supreme works of Dickens's maturity.

The Lances of Lynwood


Charlotte Mary Yonge - 1855
    She was devoted to the Church of England, and much influenced by John Keble, a near neighbour and one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement. Her novels reflected the values and concerns of Anglo-Catholicism. She began writing in 1848, and published during her long life about 100 works, chiefly novels. Her first commercial success, The Heir of Redclyffe (1854), provided the funding to enable the schooner Southern Cross to be put into service on behalf of George Selwyn. Similar charitable works were done with the profits from later novels. She was also editor, for nearly forty years, of a magazine for young ladies, the Monthly Packet. Among the best known of her works are Heartsease; or, The Brother's Wife (1854), The Daisy Chain; or, Aspirations (1856), A History of Christian Names (1863, revised 1884), A Book of Golden Deeds (1864), The Dove in the Eagle's Nest (1866), Life of John Coleridge Patteson: Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands (1873) and Hannah More (1888).

Mad Monkton And Other Stories


Wilkie Collins - 1855
    This engaging collection spanning thirty years displays his characteristic powers with twelve short stories from a number of genres. He explores the uncanny peculiarities of everyday life, as well as its underside, offers haunting ghost stories, and makes an important contribution to the newly emerging form of the detective novel.