Award-winning Claire Tomalin, author of A Life of My Own, sets the standard for sophisticated and popular biography, having written lives of Jane Austen, Samuel Pepys, and Thomas Hardy, among others. Here she tackles the best recognized and loved man of nineteenth-century England, Charles Dickens; a literary leviathan whose own difficult path to greatness inspired the creation of classic novels such as Great Expectations, David...

Award-winning biographer Fitzsimons uncovers the little-known details of Nesbit's life, introducing readers to the Fabian Society cofounder and fabulous socialite who hosted legendary parties and had admirers by the dozen, including George Bernard Shaw. Edith Nesbit is considered the first modern writer for children and the inventor of the children's adventure story. Fitzsimons uncovers the little-known details of her life, introducing readers to...

This biography of the author of Wuthering Heights, is the story of one of the most influential authors of 19th century Britain.

Presents the 1857 version of Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of her fellow author Charlotte Brontë, and includes a critical introduction, and notes on subsequent variations.

We know the facts of Mary Shelley's life in some detail--the death of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, within days of her birth; the upbringing in the house of her father, William Godwin, in a house full of radical thinkers, poets, philosophers, and writers; her elopement, at the age of seventeen, with Percy Shelley; the years of peripatetic travel across Europe that followed. But there has been no literary biography written this century, and previous...

Matthew Lewis (17775-1818), author of The Monk-one of the most famous of gothic novels-is attracting increasing attention for his own talent and his pre-eminence in the gothic school. The gothic mode, aside from its intrinsic interest, is important because of its distinct influence in British, continental, and American literature. Yet a full-length biography of Lewis has not appeared since 1839.For the no specialist seeking an introduction to Romanticism...

"With a foreword by Eric Metaxas, best-selling author of Bonhoeffer and Amazing Grace. The enthralling biography of the womanwriter who helped end the slave trade, changed Britain's upper classes, and taught a nation how to read. The history-changing reforms of Hannah More affected every level of 18th-CenturyBritish society through her keen intellect, literary achievements, collaborative spirit, strong Christian principles, and colorful personality....

Victorian literature scholar Deborah Lutz illuminates the complex and fascinating lives of the Brontës through the things they wore, stitched, wrote on, and inscribed.

This "tour de force of analysis" (Joel Agee) examines the life and work of the prolific, visionary writer, painter and critic. Kemp finds in Ruskin's life, which spanned the same years as Queen Victoria's and thus embodied the Victorian era itself, a faithful mirror of the history and psychological evolution of his age.

This notorious autobiography had the distinction of being banned in both the United States and England after its publication in 1963. Yet Harris's memoir is more than just sex: it is a mesmerizing travelogue through a bygone era, related by a brilliant raconteur who knew everybody worth knowing.