11 Books Set In Victorian England

Victorian England is a deep well when it comes to books, both fiction and non-fiction. Over the course of Queen Victoria’s long reign (1837 – 1901), the country underwent massive transformation, for better or worse. Here are eleven books set in Victorian England – fiction, non-fiction, classic, contemporary – that will transport you to this intriguing period and place.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre is a blatant proto-feminist call to arms, maybe the last thing you’d expect for a book set in Victorian England. Charlotte Brontë doesn’t even try to hide it in layers of metaphor, like so many other writers of the time. Her revolutionary approach baffled the critics: they said that any woman who wrote such a book must be “so depraved as to have long forfeited the society of her own sex”. Even reading it today, it’s clearly an amazing exposition of the patriarchal and class constraints experienced by a clever, funny (white) woman over the course of a decade in the 19th century. Read my full review of Jane Eyre here.

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold

Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Mary Jane. Recognise their names? They’re all famous for the same thing: being murdered, in 1888. That’s basically all we know about them, because the values of Victorian England have clouded our view of them for the past 130 years. They have been reduced to “prostitutes living in poverty”, other details about their lives relegated to the footnotes (if published at all). In The Five, Hallie Rubenhold sets out to correct (i.e., expand) the record. These five women are far more than simply victims of Jack The Ripper. Read my full review of The Five here.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens is perhaps the most recognisable writer of Victorian England, and readers are still studying his books today to understand day-to-day life of that era. One of his most popular works is Great Expectations, an epic that follows the coming-of-age of a young orphan boy, from the Kentish marshes to the life of a gentleman. The characters he encounters along the way reveal much about life in Victorian England, including the class constraints, gender roles, and moral reservations that each must face. Read my full review of Great Expectations here.

Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

It’s Victorian England, but not as you know it! In Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke reimagines this period and introduces the only element that reality is missing: magic. As Clarke tells it, magic once ran rife through the British Isles, but suddenly disappeared entirely… only return just as suddenly to two particular men, Jonathan Strange and (you guessed it!) Mr Norrell. She pulls from every literary tradition you can imagine to tell this story: the Gothic novel, the comedy of manners, the fantastic, the dramatic. This is a book set in Victorian England that offers something to every reader with the patience to explore its depths. Read my full review of Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell here.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Emily Brontë only wrote one book set in Victorian England, but what a book it was! Wuthering Heights depicts an eternal (and, let’s just say it, toxic) love story between a neglected boy and his adopted sister. A woman must surrender to the expectations of her class and sex, a man is consumed by bitterness and desperately seeks vengeance, and everyone gets pulled into the whirling vortex of their mutual self-destructive passion. Yes, you have to steel yourself for some histrionics and some bad choices, but no Victorian England reading list is complete without it. Read my full review of Wuthering Heights here.

The Signature Of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

If you’re noticing a theme of “women pushing the boundaries” in this list of books set in Victorian England, you’re not alone – and Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature Of All Things is no exception. This best-selling historical fiction novel follows a young brilliant woman who, thanks to her inheritance of considerable wealth, rejects the narrow path of women in her era and instead pursues her true love of botany and science. She is clear-minded and rational, but still thrown off kilter when she encounters Ambrose Pike, a painter who sees the beauty in all things and dreams of utopia.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Stoker didn’t write the first vampire novel (Dracula was published in 1897, right near the end of the Victorian era, and there were at least a handful of others that appeared before that), but his work has certainly been the most enduring. At first, it garnered pretty much the same reception as Twilight has had today – the hoi polloi of Victorian England enjoyed it well enough, but it was ignored as second-rate nonsense by literary critics right through until the second half of the 20th century. Now we recognise it for what it is: a pillar of the literary canon, and a foundational text of paranormal fiction. Read my full review of Dracula here.

The Shape Of Darkness by Laura Purcell

The Victorian era saw, among other things, the development and popularisation of the photograph, particularly the portrait. But before the technology became accessible and affordable to those other than the very wealthiest, there was the silhouette – a small cutout of a person’s profile. These miniature artworks were created by hard-working artisans, like the main character in The Shape Of Darkness. One of her few remaining clients is brutally murdered… and then another… and then another, and the only person who might be able to figure out why is a young girl who can speak to ghosts. Read my full review of The Shape Of Darkness here.

The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Victorian England wasn’t all pearl-clutching and sexual repression. The Picture Of Dorian Gray depicts a life of debauchery and indulgence, from the pen of the pretty-and-witty Irish writer Oscar Wilde. A young man – restless and directionless in his life – becomes the ‘muse’ of an artist, who paints a devastatingly handsome portrait of him. He makes a Faustian bargain that only the portrait will age, as he retains all of his youth and vigor, allowing him to sink ever deeper into a corrupt double life. Just imagine what Wilde would have to say if he’d lived to see the days of Instagram and selfies… Read my full review of The Picture Of Dorian Gray here.

His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet

His Bloody Project is one of the most inventive and intriguing books set in Victorian England – Graeme Macrae Burnet was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2016 for his efforts. Seventeen-year-old Roderick Macrae is arrested for a brutal triple homicide in a remote Scottish farming community in 1869, and there is no doubt as to his guilt. But why would a sensitive and intelligent young boy do such a thing? Each police statement reveals something different, and there are no clear answers in this epistolary novel (styled as documents ‘discovered’ by the author).

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle was a real man about town in Victorian England – it’s a rare biography or account of the upper echelons of society in that period where he doesn’t make at least one appearance. So, naturally, any list of books set in Victorian England isn’t complete without at least one of his works, and the obvious choice is The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes. This collection of stories was originally published serially in The Strand Magazine, and immediately took the literate public by storm. Over a century later, the stories remain just as popular, and detective Sherlock Holmes remains one of the most iconic figures in literature. Read my full review of The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes here.