Charles Kingsley (1819-75) was an Anglican priest. In 1844 he was appointed Rector of Eversley in Hampshire. In 1859 he became chaplain to Queen Victoria and in 1861 private tutor to her eldest son, the future Edward VII. He was a canon of Chester Cathedral...
“If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people.” – Virginia Woolf Virginia Woolf Basics Virginia Woolf was undoubtedly one of the most important English writers of the 20th Century. In a BBC poll of 82 non-British critics, two of...
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63) was, in his time, second only to Dickens in popularity. These days, however, his reputation rests almost entirely on the enduring popularity of his satirical novel Vanity Fair (1848). There were movie adaptations in 1932 with Myrna Loy, 1935 (titled Becky...
“Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.” – Charles Dickens (Hard Times) Dickens Basics Charles Dickens is, in the view of many, the greatest Victorian novelist. He’s certainly the most popular and widely read. Adaptations of...
Daniel Defoe was born in London in or around 1660. He was a prolific writer, with more than 300 works to his name including books, pamphlets and journals. He is remembered for Robinson Crusoe (1719): the first great novel in English (although probably based on...
EM Forster – born in London in 1879 – was a well-regarded novelist and short story writer. He was nominated 16 times for the Nobel Prize for Literature, but never won. Five of his six novels, which examine class differences and hypocrisy, were successfully adapted...
Victoria (Vita) Sackville-West was born in 1892 at Knole House (now owned by the National Trust), near Sevenoaks in Kent, and she spent much of her early life there. In 1913 she married diplomat Harold Nicholson and in 1930 they purchased Sissinghurst Castle, a run-down...
Laurence Sterne was born in Ireland in 1713. After graduating from Jesus College, Cambridge in 1737 he was ordained as a priest. He then moved to north Yorkshire and made it his home for most of the rest of his life. His masterwork – The...
Anthony Trollope was a prolific Victorian novelist, best known for The Chronicles of Barsetshire (six novels, 1855-67) that describe the social affairs of the fictional county of Barsetshire. Two of the novels were splendidly adapted by the BBC as The Barchester Chronicles (1982), with the...
Arnold Bennett was born in 1867 in Hanley, Staffordshire and is permanently linked with that area of England (popularly known as the Potteries). His most famous novel, Anna of the Five Towns (1902), draws on his experience of the Potteries. Other noteworthy books include The...