In the previous part of this article, we have discussed about three different English Novels that every literature student should go through at least once in their lives. In this article, we are going to discuss about the rest of the three novels.
4. ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley :
Mary Shelley began the story of Frankenstein in the
summer of 1816, probably between June 10 and June. Originally intended as a short narrative of only “a
few pages,” Mary developed the story into a full-length novel at Percy Shelley’s suggestion. Her expedition to Chamonix and the Mer de Glace at the end of July inspired her creation of the majestic scenery of the end of Chapter 9 and the beginning of Chapter 10. She worked regularly on her story until December 1816,
when a number of personal tragedies interrupted her writing.
She resumed writing early in 1817, and in April, she completed the first draft of the book. At the end of April, she gave a revised version to her husband, Percy, whose editing drastically altered the book’s original style. On March 11, 1818, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was published anonymously in three volumes and accompanied by a preface written
by Percy Shelley. Walter Scott, whose novels were a great popular
success, wrote a fairly laudatory review praising the author’s “uncommon powers of poetic imagination.” He also observed that the “ideas are always clearly as
well as forcibly expressed” and that “the descriptions of landscape have in them the choice of requisites of
truth, freshness, precision, and beauty.”
Other reviews were a mixture of positive and negative comments, but
whatever their criticisms, most reviewers recognized the book’s unusual intensity and power. Republished in 1831, the novel was heavily revised and incorporated Mary Shelley’s own preface,
the “Author’s Introduction.” The surviving sections of the original manuscript of Frankenstein are kept in the Abinger Shelley Collection in the Bodleian Library at
Oxford University. If William Wordsworth was indeed
right in his claim,
“Enough if something from our
hands have power / To live, and act, and serve the
future hour,”
Mary Shelley’s novel proved beyond any
doubt that the life and work of this truly remarkable
woman contributed essentially to the edification of
future generations.
5. ‘David Copperfield’ by Charles Dickens :
The novel traces the life of David Copperfield from the time of his birth to his mature manhood, when he
is married and familiar with the vicissitudes of life. His early years are enjoyable with his mother–who
was widowed shortly before his birth–and with her servant, Peggotty. Life is happy for David until his
mother decides to marry Mr. Murdstone; afterward, life becomes unbearable for David. He is soon sent to a miserable school where he becomes friendly with James Steerforth, a fellow student.
6. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf :
Dalloway, a privileged Londoner wedded to an individual from Parliament. Mrs. Dalloway is basically plotless; what move there is makes place primarily in the characters’ awareness. The tale tends to the idea of time in close to home insight through numerous joined stories, especially that of Clarissa as she gets ready for and has a get-together and that of the intellectually harmed war veteran Septimus Warren Smith. The two characters can be viewed as foils for one another.
Mrs. Dalloway might be most popular for Woolf’s utilization of continuous flow story, which was especially impacted by James Joyce’s Ulysses. Numerous pundits accept that, recorded as a hard copy this novel, Woolf got comfortable with herself, which she further refined in her after books. Her style was a response to the story style of much well known Victorian writing, which was direct and deterministic.
Woolf, in the same way as other Modernist writers writing in the fallout of World War I, felt that such a style didn’t genuinely portray life as the incoherent wreck that it was. She drew from both Joyce’s and Marcel Proust’s comprehension of time and brain research to create round, powerful characters that convincingly express the truth of their reality on the page.
In these series of articles we discussed about the top six novels of English Literature that every Literature student should go through at least once in their life. We sincerely thank all of our readers for staying connected with us. Enjoy your reading !
Read the part one of this article here :
