Library Discussion Groups: Jane Austen and the Romantics

Jane Austen's most famous novel, Pride and Prejudice, is rightfully considered to be the masterpiece of the world literature. Walter Scott, Somerset Maugham, Virginia Woolf and Richard Aldington admired the talented “first Lady” of the English literature. Wittily and directly described actions of the Pride and Prejudice happen in provincial England in the end of eighteenth century. For about two hundred years readers have been mesmerised by the love story of Mr Darcy and Miss Elizabeth who managed to correct the mistake of pride and prejudice.

Entranced by the perfection of his recently painted portrait, the youthful Dorian Gray expresses a wish that the figure on the canvas could age and change in his place. When his wish comes true, the portrait becomes his hideous secret as he follows a downward trajectory of decadence and cruelty that leaves its traces only in the portrait’s degraded image. Wilde’s unforgettable portrayal of a Faustian bargain and its consequences is narrated with his characteristic incisive wit and diamond-sharp prose. The result is a novel that is as flamboyant and controversial as its incomparable author.

The deliriously entertaining Cold Comfort Farm is "very probably the funniest book ever written" (The Sunday Times, London), a hilarious parody of D. H. Lawrence's and Thomas Hardy's earthy, melodramatic novels. When the recently orphaned socialite Flora Poste descends on her relatives at the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm in deepest Sussex, she finds a singularly miserable group in dire need of her particular talent: organization.

The coachman tried to warn young Mary Yellan away from the ruined, forbidding place on the rainswept Cornish coast. But Mary chose instead to honor her mother's dying request that she join her frightened Aunt Patience and foreboding Uncle Joss Merlyn at Jamaica Inn. From her first glimpse on that raw November eve, she could sense the inn's dark power.

Mary never imagined that she would become hopelessly ensnared in the vile, villainous schemes being hatched within its crumbling walls—or that she would fall in love with a handsome, enigmatic stranger. But what secrets is he hiding from her—and can she really trust him?

The sentimental novels of the early national period were considered a danger to society and were criticized for the corrupting influence they had on the minds of their mostly young and female audience. They told tales of vice and intrigue that purported to be "based on fact" and also advocated the need for better female education that would prepare young women against sweet-talking seducers. Extremely popular in America after the Revolution and throughout the nineteenth century, Charlotte Temple and The Coquette were two of the most successful novels of the period. Reprinted here in their entirety, with Introductions by the literary scholar Cathy N. Davidson, they offer the modern student a glimpse at the earliest American popular fiction.
Charlotte Temple, the most popular novel in America until Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, went through over 200 editions. It tells of a beautiful English girl who at the age of 15 is courted by and runs away with a British lieutenant named Montraville.
Susanna Rowson, the daughter of a British naval officer, was one of the most accomplished women of the early national period. Actress, song-writer, novelist, poet, dramatist, and essayist, she was also the founder of one of the most progressive academies for young women of her day. She remained best-known, however, for Charlotte Temple, a novel that promised to be "of service to [the]...young and unprotected woman in her first entrance into life."

The demise of a respectable but unloved fiancé introduces a sudden and intoxicating freedom into Eliza Wharton's life. Two new beaus vie for her attention: Reverend Boyer, a staid and proper clergyman, and Major Sanford, a dashing libertine. Reluctant to commit to either suitor, Eliza struggles with the conflicts between duty, romance, and her new-found independence.
Based on the true story of Eliza Whitman, the much-talked-about focus of America's first tabloid scandal, this 1797 novel both satirizes and pays homage to its sentimental precursors. The tale unfolds from a variety of perspectives, recounted in a series of letters between the heroine and her friends and family. Eliza's situation reflects the limited options available to middle-class women of her era, and her dilemma and its resolution offer fascinating historical, literary, and cultural insights into early American society.

The narrator, a Bostonian, returns after a brief visit a few summers prior, to the small coastal town of Dunnet, Maine, in order to finish writing her book. Upon arriving she settles in with Almira Todd, a widow in her sixties and the local apothecary and herbalist. The narrator occasionally assists Mrs. Todd with her frequent callers, but this distracts her from her writing and she seeks a room of her own.

Elizabeth and Her German Garden is a novel by Elizabeth von Arnim, first published in 1898; it was very popular and frequently reprinted during the early years of the 20th century. The story is a year's diary written by the protagonist Elizabeth about her experiences learning gardening and interacting with her friends. It includes commentary on the beauty of nature and on society, but is primarily humorous due to Elizabeth's frequent mistakes and her idiosyncratic outlook on life. She looked down upon the frivolous fashions of her time writing “I believe all needlework and dressmaking is of the devil, designed to keep women from study.” The book is the first in a series about the same character. It is noteworthy for being published without a named author. Molesley lends a copy of this book to Anna on the 2nd episode of the 2nd season of Downton Abbey. In the novel The Shellseekers (1988) by Rosamunde Pilcher, Sophie reads Elizabeth von Arnim’s "Elizabeth and her German Garden“. In chapter 9 ("Sophie“), Sophie says to Penelope: "[…] I always go back to it. It comforts me. Soothes me. It reminds me of a world that once existed and will exist again when the war has finished.“ In the novel The Gurnsey Potato Peel Pie and Literary Society, it is referred to by Elizabeth as having been the topic of discussion at the society meeting that she pretended had taken place on the night of the roast pork dinner. May 7th.--I love my garden. I am writing in it now in the late afternoon loveliness, much interrupted by the mosquitoes and the temptation to look at all the glories of the new green leaves washed half an hour ago in a cold shower. Two owls are perched near me, and are carrying on a long conversation that I enjoy as much as any warbling of nightingales.

First published in 1913, Edith Wharton’s “The Custom of the Country” tells the story of Undine Spragg, a girl from a Midwestern town with unquenchable social aspirations. Though Undine is narcissistic, pampered, and incredibly selfish, she is also a fascinating, vibrant, and beguiling heroine whose marital initiation into New York high society from its trade-wealthy fringes is only the beginning of her relentless plans. Undine is never satisfied with what she has and constantly hungers for more wealth, more prestige, and more luxury. Her search for these lofty goals takes her from New York to Europe and the apartments of the nouveau riche to ancient French estates. While Undine’s cleverness and single-mindedness ultimately gets her what she wants most, it comes at great cost to everyone else, such as her family, child, and many husbands. Through Undine’s restlessness and ambition, Wharton weaves an elaborate plot that renders a detailed depiction of upper class social behavior in the early twentieth century. By utilizing a character with inexorable greed in a novel of manners, Wharton explores the social customs of an emerging modern age and the changing role of women in society. This edition is printed on premium acid-free society.

Gaskell's last novel, widely considered her masterpiece, follows the fortunes of two families in nineteenth century rural England. At its core are family relationships father, daughter and step-mother, father and sons, father and step-daughter all tested and strained by the romantic entanglements that ensue. Despite its underlying seriousness, the prevailing tone is one of comedy. Gaskell vividly portrays the world of the late 1820 s and the forces of change within it, and her vision is always humane and progressive. The story is full of acute observation and sympathetic character-study: the feudal squire clinging to old values, his naturalist son welcoming the new world of science, the local doctor and his scheming second wife, the two girls brought together by their parents marriage...

Sebastian is young, handsome, moody, and the heir to Chevron, a vast and opulent ducal estate. He feels a deep love for the countryside and for his patrimony, but he loathes the frivolous social world his mother and her shallow friends represent. At one of his mother’s decadent house parties, Sebastian meets two people who shake his sense of self: Leonard Anquetil, a lowborn arctic explorer, who questions his mode of living; and Lady Roehampton, a married society beauty with a string of lovers, who breaks his heart. When Sebastian reaches the brink of despair, it is his self-possessed younger sister, Viola, who opens for them both a gateway to another world.