Guides: ENG 257 British Novel: Historical Context

Secondary sources about the author and the historical context

Scholars study primary sources (written during the author's lifetime) in order to provide us with secondary sources of information, i.e. recent scholarship about the author's historical context.

To find books about the author's historical context, go to the library catalogue and search by subject:

How to find articles in Historical Abstracts (search by historical period)

Go to the library Databases page and select EBSCO services and then select EBSOhost Web and then Historical Abstracts:

To learn about castaways during Daniel Defoe's lifetime, circa 1660-1731, search by Historical Period:

Search EBSCO Discovery Service for articles about historical context

Charles Dickens published Great Expectations in weekly installments from 1860 to 1861. To learn more about serialized fiction in the 19th century, try this search: (Go to Databases and select EBSCO services and then choose the relevant databases).

Biographical and historical secondary sources

The Historical Austen by William H. Galperin
ISBN: 9780812219241
Publication Date: 2005-05-13
Reading the history of her novels' reception through other histories—literary, aesthetic, and social—The Historical Austen is a major reassessment of Jane Austen's achievement as well as a corrective to the historical Austen that abides in literary scholarship.
Jane Austen's Anglicanism by Laura Mooneyham White
ISBN: 9781409418634
Publication Date: 2011-02-28
White argues that viewing Austen's Anglicanism through the lens of primary sources of the period, including the complex history of the Georgian church, provides a context for understanding the central conflict between Austen's malicious wit and her family's testimony to her Christian piety and kindness.
Jane Austen: A Life by Carol Shields
ISBN: 9780143035169
Publication Date: 2005-05-31
In Jane Austen, Shields follows the superb and beloved novelist from her early family life in Steventon to her later years in Bath, her broken engagement, and her intense relationship with her sister Cassandra.
Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin
Call Number: PR 4581 .T66 2012
ISBN: 9781594203091
Publication Date: 2011-10-27
Charles Dickens: A Life gives full measure to Dickens's heroic stature—his huge virtues both as a writer and as a human being—while observing his failings in both respects with an unblinking eye.
Charles Dickens by Michael Slater
ISBN: 9780300170931
Publication Date: 2011-05-31
This long-awaited biography uncovers Dickens the man. Drawing on a lifetime’s study of this prodigiously brilliant figure, Michael Slater explores the personal and emotional life, the high-profile public activities, the relentless travel, the charitable works, the amateur theatricals and the astonishing productivity.
The Victorian City : Everyday Life in Dickens' London by Judith Flanders
ISBN: 9781250040213
Publication Date: 2014-07-15
Judith Flanders, one of Britain's foremost social historians, explores the world portrayed so vividly in Dickens' novels, showing life on the streets of London in colorful, fascinating detail.
Thomas Hardy by Claire Tomalin
ISBN: 9780143112877
Publication Date: 2008-01-29
A portrait of the enigmatic nineteenth-century novelist and poet discusses his humble origins, rise through the London literary scene, and efforts to challenge the sexual and religious conventions of his time.
The Life of Thomas Hardy by Paul D. Turner; Claude Rawson (Editor)
ISBN: 0631168818
Publication Date: 2001-05-03
Turner's strikingly original and penetrating account of Hardy's extraordinarily creative life and longevity offers a series of thirty-two chapters, each of which relates the biographical and literary background of a single work.
Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee
ISBN: 0679447075
Publication Date: 1997-04-22
With epic scope and a rich use of detail, Hermione Lee has created a miraculously evocative portrait that lets us know as never before how Virginia Woolf looked, how she sounded, how she dressed and behaved, and how she wrote.
Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life by Julia Briggs
ISBN: 0156032295
Publication Date: 2006-11-06
In this fresh, absorbing book, Julia Briggs puts the writing back at the center of Woolf's life, reads that life through her work, and mines the novels themselves to create a compelling new form of biography. Julia Briggs has produced a book that is a convincing, moving portrait of an artist.
Art and Affection: A Life of Virginia Woolf by Panthea Reid
ISBN: 0195101952
Publication Date: 1996-12-12
In this bold and compassionate new biography, Panthea Reid at last weaves together the diverse strands of Virginia Woolf's life and career. In lucid and often poetic prose, she offers a dazzlingly complete portrait that is essential to our reading of Woolf.