On this page, I have written about only a few famous authors. You can see a complete list of authors here.
This long period witnessed the rise of some of the greatest poets and writers of the English language.
Famous Poets of the Victorian era
Notable Victorian poets include Byron, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Elizabeth Browning, P. B. Shelley, William Wordsworth, etc. Byron’s brooding romantic poems attracted a lot of attention in a society noted for its high regard for morality.
Tennyson was a prolific writer whose love for nature and romance found expression in beautiful poems many of which were based on myths and legends of a long past classical era. Shelly and Wordsworth are other Victorian poets whose works paint a brilliant picture of nature.
The literature of the Victorian era
The novels of the Victorian era are generally based on very strong concepts of morality. In a society where modern industries were emerging rapidly, many literary works sought to bring out the grim reality of a landless working class and the precarious condition of a declining gentry. Charles Dickens proved to be highly adept in portraying the actual condition of society. He used humour and satire for this purpose.
The Bronte sisters produced some of the literary masterpieces of this period. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, set amidst the forbidding moors of Yorkshire, is a tale of unresolved passions that draws a lively picture of contemporary society. Charlotte Bronte wrote Jane Eyre which narrates the growth of a young woman. The tales are firmly grounded in a sense of high morality.
The other famous writers of the Victorian era include George Elliot or Mary Ann Evans who adopted a male pseudonym to distance herself from the lighthearted romances with which women writers of the time were associated. Her novels like Middlemarch and Silas Merner are based on realism and provide deep psychological insights. Thackeray’s Vanity Fair provides a satiric commentary on the age.
Morality is the dominant theme of the Victorian era. It even found its way into children’s tales in the works of Lewis Karol and Rudyard Kipling. Read about Tommy by Rudyard Kipling. Other famous writers of the Victorian era include Anthony Trollope and Thomas Hardy who presented a Somber picture of daily life and struggle against hardship often with the help of tragic characters.
Oscar Wilde combined satire and morality to produce some of the best-known works of English Literature.
Famous non-fiction writers
The Victorian era witnessed the creation of several scholarly works. The Communist Manifesto where Karl Marx and Frederick Engels analyses the emergence of several state systems and forecasts the rise of communism was written at this time. Charles Darwin‘s On the origin of Species, written at this time was to radically alter the scientific thinking of the world.
The list of the famous writers of the Victorian era is thus long and illustrious. They enriched the treasury of the English language and left a vivid picture of a long and prosperous rule.