Elizabeth Bennet

Jane Bennet

Fitzwilliam Darcy

Chrles Bingley

George Wickham

It begins:
IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
``My dear Mr. Bennet,'' said his lady to him one day, ``have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?''

Mansfield Park

the Bertrams of Mansfield Park
Fanny Price
Mrs. Norris

Emma

Emma Woodhouse
Mr. Knightley
Miss Bates
Frank Churchill
Harriet Smith
Jane Fairfax

It begins:

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

Persuasion

Sir Walter
Elizabeth Elliot|
Anne Elliot
Frederick Wentworth

Charlotte Bronte (1816 – 1855)

Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters whose novels have become enduring classics of English literature.

Jane Eyre

The narrator and main character, Jane Eyre, is a poor orphan with a joyless life as a child in the opening chapters. Her wealthy aunt, the widowed Mrs. Reed, have agreed to take care of Jane after her parents' deaths. However, she and her children are unkind to Jane, never failing to emphasize how she is below them. Jane's plain, intelligent, and passionate nature, combined her occasional "visions" or vivid dreams, certainly does not help to secure her relatives' affections.

When tensions escalate, Jane is sent to Lowood, a boarding school run by the inhumane Mr. Brocklehurst. She is soon is branded a liar, which hurts her even more than malnutrition and cold, but Miss Temple, the headmistress Jane admires, later clears her of these charges. She also finds a friend in Helen Burns, who is very learned and intelligent, has a patient and philosophical mind, and believes firmly in God. While Jane responds to the injustices of the world with a barely contained burning temper, Helen accepts earthly sufferings, including her own premature death from consumption (TB), with calmness and a martyr-like attitude.

After a serious typhoid fever epidemic occuring simultaneously with Helen's death, the conditions in Lowood improve as Jane slowly finds her place in the institution, eventually becoming a teacher. When Miss Temple marries and moves away, Jane decides to change careers. She is desperate to see the world beyond Lowood and puts out an advertisement in the local paper, soon securing a position as governess in Thornfield Hall.

At first, life is very quiet with Jane teaching a young French girl, Adélè, and spending time with the old housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax. But everything changes when the owner of the manor—brooding, Byronic, fiery Edward Rochester—arrives. Though on rough footing at first, he and Jane slowly become acquainted with and respect each other. Mr. Rochester creates an elaborate set-up by seemingly courting a proud local beauty named Miss Blanche Ingram until Jane cannot bear it any longer. Mr. Rochester then admits that his courtship of Miss Ingram was a ruse to arouse Jane's jealousy and that it is she whom he truly loves. His feelings are returned, and they become engaged despite their differences in social status, age, and experience. Jane is young and innocent at nineteen years old, while Rochester is nearly forty—worldly, and thoroughly disillusioned with life and religion. Jane is determined to stay modest, plain, and virtuous, and Rochester is almost equally determined to offer her expensive presents and finery. The former has the moral high ground, though, and the weeks before the wedding are spent mostly as she wishes.

The wedding ceremony is interrupted by a lawyer, who declares that Mr. Rochester is already married. His mad wife Bertha Mason, a Creole from Jamaica whom he had to marry to secure an estate, resides in the attic of Thornfield Hall, and her presence explains all sorts of mysterious events that have taken place during Jane's stay in Thornfield. Mr. Rochester offers to take her abroad to live with him, but Jane is not willing to sacrifice her morals or self-respect for earthly pleasures, let alone accept the status of mistress, even though Rochester insists Jane will break his heart if she refuses him. Torn between her love for Rochester and her own integrity and religion, Jane flees Thornfield in the middle of the night, with very little money and nowhere to go.

She wanders for a few days and finally finds safe haven, under an alias, with a vicar, St. John Rivers, and his two sisters. They bond, and in due course Jane is given a position as village schoolteacher. Later, St. John learns Jane's true identity, and, in an incredulous coincidence, it transpires that he and his sisters are actually her cousins. Additionally, Jane conveniently inherits a large sum of money from an uncle who lived abroad. The cousins are left without inheritance because of an old family feud, but she promptly splits the money so that all four of them are now financially secure. This gives St. John the means to pursue his true calling, to go to India as a missionary, but not without proposing marriage to Jane in order for her to accompany him. Though this is her opportunity to choose a husband of high morals, she knows St. John does not truly love her. Counter to her protest, he insists they are to be married if they are to go to India. Jane nearly succumbs to his proposal, but at the last minute, in another supernatural fashion, she hears Rochester's voice calling her in the wind, and feels the need to respond to it.

Jane immediately travels to Thornfield Hall, only to find it abandoned and ruined by a devastating fire. She learns that Mr. Rochester lost a hand, an eye, and the sight of the other eye as a result of trying to unsuccessfully save Bertha from the flames, of which she was the cause of. Upon acquiring the knowledge of his location, at a cabin called Ferndean, she sets off for it. She and Mr. Rochester reconcile and marry, for he has adopted love and religion. She writes in the perspective of ten years after their marriage, during which she gave birth to a son and Mr. Rochester gained part of his sight back. Jane's long quest to find love and a sense of belonging is finally fulfilled. The book ends with a look at the noble missionary death of St. John Rivers far away in India, most likely representing the righteousness of the path Jane did not take.

Emily Bronte (1818 – 1848)

Emily Jane Brontë was a British novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel Wuthering Heights,

Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's only novel. It was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell.

Brontë's novel tells the tale of Catherine and Heathcliff, their all-encompassing love for one another, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them both. Social tensions prevent their union, leading Heathcliff to shun and abuse society. The plot is given here in detail, as the book's narration is at times non-linear.

The story is narrated by a character named Lockwood, who is renting a house from Heathcliff. The house, Thrushcross Grange, is close to Wuthering Heights.
Much of the action itself is narrated to Lockwood during his illness by the housekeeper of Thrushcross Grange, Nelly Dean. Lockwood's arrival is after much of the story has already happened - but his story is interwoven with Dean's.

The plot is complicated, involving many turns of fortune. It begins with Mr. Earnshaw, the original proprietor of Wuthering Heights, bringing back the dark-skinned foundling Heathcliff from Liverpool. Initially, Earnshaw's children - Hindley and Catherine - detest the boy, but over time Heathcliff wins Catherine's heart, to the resentment of Hindley, who sees Heathcliff as an interloper of his father's affections. Later, Hindley is packed off to college by his father. Catherine and Heathcliff become inseparable.

Upon Earnshaw's death three years later, Hindley comes home from college and surprises everyone by also bringing home a wife, a woman named Frances. He takes over Wuthering Heights, and brutalizes Heathcliff, forcing him to work as a hired hand. Despite this, Heathcliff and Catherine remain the fastest of friends. By means of an accident (a dog bite), Catherine is forced to stay at the Linton family estate Thrushcross Grange for some weeks, wherein she matures and grows attached to the refined young Edgar Linton. A year later, Frances dies soon after the birth of Hindley's child Hareton. The loss leaves Hindley despondent, and he turns to alcohol. Some two years after that, Catherine becomes engaged to Edgar, causing Heathcliff to leave.

After Catherine has been married to Edgar for three years, Heathcliff returns to see her, having amassed significant wealth. He has duped Hindley into owing him Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff learns of, and takes advantage of, a crush Edgar's sister Isabella has on him and he seduces and elopes with her, much to Edgar's despair.

Samuel Butler (1835-1902)

Note that in British literary history, there are two men by name of Samuel Butler. Don't confuse this Victorian Butler with the author of Hudibras.

The Way of All Flesh (1903)

The Way of All Flesh is a semi-autobiographical novel by Samuel Butler which attacks Victorian era hypocrisy. Written between 1873 and 1884, it traces four generations of the Pontifex family. It represents the diminishment of religious outlook from a Calvinistic approach, which is presented as harsh. Butler dared not publish it during his lifetime, but when it was published, it was accepted as part of the general revulsion against Victorianism.La

Erewhon (1872)

Erewhon, an anagram for "Nowhere," is a satire of Victorian society.

The first few chapters of the novel, dealing with the discovery of Erewhon, are in fact based on Butler's own experiences in New Zealand, where as a young man he was a sheep farmer for about four years (1860-1864) and where he explored parts of the interior of the South Island. (One of the country's largest sheep farms, located in this region, is named Erewhon in his honour)

The greater part of the book consists of a description of Erewhon. The nature of this nation is clearly intended to be ambiguous. At first glance Erewhon appears to be a utopia, yet it soon becomes clear that this is far from the case. Yet for all the failings of Erewhon it is also clearly not a dystopia (or anti-utopia), an undesirable society such as that depicted by George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. As a satirical utopia Erewhon has sometimes been compared to Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift, the image of Utopia in this case also bearing strong parallels with the self-view of the British Empire at the time.

Erewhon satirizes various aspects of Victorian society, including criminal punishment, religion and anthropocentrism. In Erewhon law, offenders are treated as if they were ill, whilst ill people are looked upon as criminals, for example. Another feature of Erewhon is that there are no machines, because they are considered to be dangerous: they might develop consciousness and supersede humankind. This last aspect of Erewhon reveals the influence of Charles Darwin's evolution theory; Butler had read The Origin of Species soon after it was published in 1859.

Fanny Burney (1752-1840)

was an English novelist and diarist. She published her first novel Evelina anonymously in 1778. The revelation of its authorship brought her nearly immediate fame by its narrative and comic power. She published Cecilia in 1782 and Camilla in 1796. Her three major novels, much admired by Jane Austen, are about the entry into the world of a young, beautiful, intelligent but inexperienced girl.

Evelina

Evelina, the title character, is abandoned by her father, Sir John Belmont, who thought that he would receive a fortune from marriage. Evelina's mother dies in childbirth, and Evelina is raised in seclusion by Mr. Villars, her guardian. When Evelina grows up to be a beautiful and intelligent woman, she travels to London to visit a friend, Mrs. Mirvan. She is introduced to society, falls in love with the handsome Lord Orville. However, her ill-bred relatives, and in particular her vulgar grandmother, Madame Duval, as well as the obstinate attentions of Sir Clement Willoughby frustrate her happiness. To attain her proper station in London society, Evelina's friends contact Sir Belmont to get him to acknowledge his daughter. Belmont announces that, in fact, he has had his daughter with him since her mother's death. It turns out that the nurse had passed her own child to Sir Belmont. Belmont discovers the imposition, recognizes Evelina, and she marries Lord Orville.

The novel was a great success in Burney's own lifetime. Her father was a friend of the leading men of the age, and Frances herself knew most of these distinguished writers and artists. None of her subsequent novels achieved the success of Evelina, but it was very well received, and the novel compares favorably with the early novels of Jane Austen.

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