Showing results by publisher "RNIB" in Literary Fiction

Jane Eyre remains a classic of 19th-century English literature and is the most famous and influential novel by Charlotte Bronte. Published in 1847, one of the most popular of all English novels, the story tells of the rise of a poor orphan girl against overwhelming odds. It is a work of fiction with memorable characters and vivid scenes exploring themes that have as much relevance today as in the time it was written.

A comic novel, first published in December 1815, Emma tells of the perils of misconstrued romance. The main character Emma Woodhouse is a well-to-do young woman in a small English town who is a self-appointed matchmaker. The story explores the nature of these orchestrated matches coming to life through the hilarious characters including arguably Austen's two greatest comic creations - the eccentric Mr. Woodhouse and the quintessential bore, Miss Bates.

Dracula is the seminal gothic horror novel of its time as Bram Stoker introduced the world to the legendary vampire Count Dracula. Published in 1897 and told through a series of diary entries and letters, the story journeys into the dark world of Count Dracula through the eyes of several different narrators. The novel explores many themes, the role of women in Victorian culture, conventional and conservative sexuality, immigration, colonialism, post colonialism and folklore.

Written in 1873 it was autobiographical and the heroine Elfride Swancourt is based on Hardy's first wife Emma Gifford. The novel tells the tail of a the love triangle between a young woman, Elfride Swancourt, and her two suitors from very different backgrounds.

The Brothers Karamazov is the final novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky and is generally considered the culmination of his life's work. Published in November 1880, Dostoevsky spent nearly two years writing the novel set in 19th-century Russia. Fydor Karamazov, a mean and disreputable landowner, has three sons, Dmitry, a profligate army officer; Ivan, a writer with revolutionary ideas; and Alexey, a religious novice.

Serialised between December 1860 to August 1861, it tells the heartwarming story of Pip, a poor boy who gets an unexpected chance to move up in society. Charles Dickens (1812 - 9 June 1870) is arguably the greatest novelist England ever produced. His innate comic genius and shrewd depictions of Victorian life - along with his memorable characters - have made him beloved by readers the world over.

Middlemarch is considered one of the masterpieces of English fiction. Published in 1874, it is the seventh and penultimate novel by George Eliot. It pursues a number of underlying themes, including the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism and self-interest, religion and hypocrisy, political reform, and education.

It tells of the love affair between Anna and Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and must endure the hypocrisies of society. Set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Russia, faith is challenged, bonds are broken, love dies and is reborn.

The story, composed entirely of letters written by the various characters to each other, tells of the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, two rivals who use sex as a weapon to humiliate and degrade others, uncaring of those who face social ruin or whose hearts are broken. It depicts a decadent and corrupt aristocracy exposing the perversions of the so-called Ancien Regime. The relevance of this grew due to the ensuing the French Revolution.

First published in three volumes in 1860 it tells the story of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, a brother and sister growing up on the river Floss. Maggie is deeply attached to her brother but their conflicting temperaments and outlook produce only stress and misunderstanding until they are finally reconciled in a moment of revelation before tragedy overtakes them.

First published in 1861 it tells the tale of the lonely weaver Silas Marner who, after suffering betrayal and rejection, leaves his community to become a recluse obsessed only with accumulating money. One day Silas's money is stolen by Dunstan Cass, a dissolute son of Squire Cass, the town's leading landowner. The loss of his gold drives Silas into a deep gloom, until one day a little golden-haired orphan girl wanders into his home to change his life forever.

Published in 1854, the story describes class conflict in Victorian England and serves as a powerful critique of the social injustices that plagued the Industrial Revolution. Charles Dickens (1812 - 9 June 1870) is arguably the greatest novelist England ever produced. His innate comic genius and shrewd depictions of Victorian life - along with his memorable characters - have made him beloved by readers the world over.

The young orphan Oliver Twist flees a cruel workhouse for the dirty streets of London, where he falls in with a nefarious gang. As the shrewd Artful Dodger, the menacing Fagin and the vicious Bill Sikes lead Oliver deeper into a criminal life, a dark conspiracy is revealed around him.

Romola is the fourth novel from the great Victorian novelist George Eliot and her first historical novel. Published in 1862 - 63, it is set in Florence at the end of the fifteenth century and events during the Italian Renaissance, and includes in its plot several notable figures from Florentine history. The story is of a girl's devotion to her blind father, her marriage to and betrayal by a young Greek and ultimate life of self-sacrifice.

One of the great literary classics of Western literature and the only published novel written by Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray created great controversy on publication because of its homosexual undertones, and was later used as evidence against him at his trial at the Old Bailey in 1895. "If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old...I would give my soul for that!" The wish uttered by Dorian Gray as he gazes on his portrait forms the basis of this story.

Published between 1840 and 1841, it is Dickens' first attempt at an historical novel, his only other being A Tale of Two Cities. Full of classic Dickensian characters, the plot is based on the "no-popery" or Gordon riots of 1780 seen through the eyes of the good-hearted idiot Barnaby Rudge.

Here is Henry James' dark comedic masterpiece, written in the final period of his life. Lambert Strether goes to Paris to bring back Chad, son of the wealthy New England widow he plans to marry. But he gradually comes to feel that life in Paris may hold more for him than in Woollett, Massachusetts.

Published in twenty monthly installments between March 1852 and September 1853. It is held to be one of Dickens's finest novels. A complex plot, it challenges the reader to make connections--between the fashionable and the outcast, the beautiful and the ugly, the powerful and the victims.

A Group of Noble Dames is an 1891 collection of short stories by great English novelist Thomas Hardy. The ten stories focus on "store of ladies, whose bright eyes rain influence". Hardy delves into the hidden depths of country families to reveal what went on behind the scenes.

Roderick Hudson is one of Henry James's first novels.

Originally published in 1875 as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly, it traces the development of the title character, a sculptor. Funded by the wealthy Rowland Mallet, Roderick Hudson travels from America to Rome, where he becomes the talk of the city. He soon finds that Europe tests him in ways he had not anticipated, both as an artist and as a man.