Chapter I. Victorian era. I. 1 Government and politics in the Victorian era

II.3 The Victorian Novel
Of all the Victorian novelists, Charles Dickens was perhaps the most important. A true reflection of the Victorian age, Dickens often used social inequality as a basis for his novels. Dickens was especially concerned with the plight of children in the Industrial Revolution, as can be seen in several of his works. Before reforms were passed, children as young as four or five years old were forced to work in factories, mines, narrow chimneys, and on the streets of London as errand boys. Dickens’ novels forced readers to examine aspects like treatment of the poor, orphanages, schools, and work houses. Other important Victorian novels and Victorian novelists are Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights), Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre), Rudyard Kipling (Kim), George Eliot (Silas Marner), Robert Louis Stevenson (Kidnapped and Treasure Island), H. Rider Haggard (King Solomon’s Mines), Jerome K. Jerome (Diary of a Pilgrimage), William Harrison Ainsworth (The Miser’s Daughter), Elizabeth Gaskell (Mary Barton), Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim), and Lewis Carroll (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland). Another great among the Victorian novelists is Thomas Hardy. Hardy’s Victorian novels were very controversial at the time they were written, but they still remain popular today. These include Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd, Jude the Obscure, and The Return of the Native. Short works of fiction often appeared in periodicals during the Victorian period. Since many people had access to periodicals, short stories were popular and were widely read. Of course, short stories were also published in collections, and some novellas were published on their own. Major writers of short fiction from Victorian times include Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, Wilkie Collins, Joseph Conrad, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Many of the same Victorian literature themes found in novels and poems can be found in short works of fiction from the period.