[Beleg]

So, who is your favorite British Victorian author? [Basically anyone who wrote between 1830 and the turn of the century]

And what is that you most like in the works of your favorite author?


[Hope to get the ball rolling for the new forum with a brand-new thread :D]

[Monty Mike]

J.R. Priestly (though I think he wrote sometime in the 1920's or 30's)

I read his play (I don't think I can call it a novel) An Inspector Calls, and enjoyed everypage. The ending was fantastic, and I admire Priestly as a writer.

Probably a more relavent book I read, regarding this thread, was Silas Marner by George Eliot. She was a very good writer IMHO, and perhaps slightly underrated.

[Serq]

My all-time favourite would be Jane Austen, but she wrote a bit before 1830, I think.

Others include the Bronte sisters (Emily & Charlotte), Mary Shelley, Wilkie Collins, Oscar Wilde, and Charles Dickens.

Also Henry James, who was born in the US, but became a British citizen.

[Jacquin]

I've pretty much always been a fan of Arthur Conan Doyle. My dad introduced me to Sherlock Holmes when I was a kid and I was instantly hooked...

J

[Archren]

He didn't write fiction, but Charles McKay wrote "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" in 1855, and it is still one of my all-time favorite books. No other book has ever truly made me see how much humans and human behavior stay the same no matter the era. It is really well written and sounds very modern to our ears. More so, I would say, than even a more "modern" author like Conan Doyle.

[Dawnstorm]

Oscar Wilde.

I don't much care for his plays (although they're not bad). I like some of his poetry.

But:

The Picture of Dorian Grey is a great novel, and I love his fairy tales.

His aphorisms are fun too.

He's got such a delightful impish mind.

***

Edit: Oops, just realised the "British" in the title, and unless you include Ireland in the British Isles (don't kill me, you Irish people, I shut myself up...), Oscar Wilde doesn't qualify.

To be on the safe side, I'll name George Elliot as a replacement. I loved her Middlemarch.

[whitebelly]

Charles Dickens, esp. Martin Chuzzlewit and Our Mutual Friend ... dark, gloomy, genius. Whichever way you turn it, Dickens was one of the greatest story-tellers.

Wilkie Collins, friend and contemporary of Dickens, in particular The Woman in White and Armadale, Victorian gothic at its best.

[Leiali]

There are so many good writers to choose from. Most have already been picked but here are some extra:

Anthony Trollope
Robert Louis Stevenson (For Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde especially)

Can we count Mary Shelley? I thought Frankenstein was written in 1818 or so? If we can then that would be the best book imo....

It is difficult to pick best author as some are so much more prolific than others - I guess Dickens would be up there, but I find his style really dry. Shame we can't include other nationalities as Edgar Allen Poe must be enjoyed by a lot of people here!

[Teresa Edgerton]

Charles Dickens, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins. But Dickens is definitely my favorite. Our Mutual Friend and Great Expectations are probably my favorites among the novels, and the Christmas stories for short fiction. (Although I do have a soft spot for "Captain Murderer.")