1.

Charles Dickens
It was in the Victorian era (18371901) that the novel became the leading literary genre in
English.[162] Women played an important part in this rising popularity both as authors and as
readers.[163] Monthly serializing of fiction encouraged this surge in popularity, due to a
combination of the rise of literacy, technological advances in printing, and improved
economics of distribution.[164] Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers, was published in twenty
parts between April 1836 and November 1837.[165] Both Dickens and Thackeray frequently
published this way.[166] However, the standard practice of publishing three volume editions
continued until the end of the 19th century.[167] Circulating libraries, that allowed books to
be borrowed for an annual subscription, were a further factor in the rising popularity of the
novel.
The 1830s and 1840s saw the rise of social novel, that "arose out of the social and political
upheavals which followed the Reform Act of 1832".[168] This was in many ways a reaction to
rapid industrialization, and the social, political and economic issues associated with it, and was
a means of commenting on abuses of government and industry and the suffering of the poor,
who were not profiting from England's economic prosperity.[169] Stories of the working class
poor were directed toward middle class to help create sympathy and promote change. An
early example is Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist (183738). Other significant early example of
this genre is Sybil, or The Two Nations, a novel by Benjamin Disraeli (180481) and Charles
Kingsley's (181975) Alton Locke (1849).
Charles Dickens (181270) emerged on the literary scene in the late 1830s and soon became
probably the most famous novelist in the history of English literature. One of his most popular
works to this day is A Christmas Carol (1843). Dickens fiercely satirized various aspects of
society, including the workhouse in Oliver Twist, the failures of the legal system in Bleak
House, the dehumanizing effect of money in Dombey and Son and the influence of the
philosophy of utilitarianism in factories, education etc., in Hard Times. However some critics
have suggested that Dickens' sentimentality blunts the impact of his satire.[170] In more
recent years Dickens has been most admired for his later novels, such as Dombey and Son
(184648), Bleak House (185253) and Little Dorrit (185557), Great Expectations (186061),
and Our Mutual Friend (186465).[171] An early rival to Dickens was William Makepeace
Thackeray (181163), who during the Victorian period ranked second only to him, but he is
now much less read and is known almost exclusively for Vanity Fair (1847). In that novel he
satirizes whole swaths of humanity while retaining a light touch. It features his most
memorable character, the engagingly roguish Becky Sharp.

2. Charlotte Bronte
Charlotte Bront's (181655) work was Jane Eyre, which is written in an innovative style that
combines naturalism with gothic melodrama, and broke new ground in being written from an
intensely first-person female perspective.[172] Emily Bront's (181848) novel was Wuthering
Heights and, according to Juliet Gardiner, "the vivid sexual passion and power of its language
and imagery impressed, bewildered and appalled reviewers,"[173] and led the Victorian public
and many early reviewers to think that it had been written by a man.[174] Even though it
received mixed reviews when it first came out, and was often condemned for its portrayal of
amoral passion, the book subsequently became an English literary classic.[175] The third
Bront novel of 1847 was Anne Bront's (182049) Agnes Grey, which deals with the lonely
life of a governess. Anne Bront's second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), is perhaps
the most shocking of the Bronts' novels. In seeking to present the truth in literature, Anne's
depiction of alcoholism and debauchery was profoundly disturbing to 19th-century
sensibilities.[176] Charlotte Bront's Shirley was published in 1849, Villette in 1853, and The
Professor in 1857.
3. Goefrey Chaucer
Chaucer (1343-1400) whose works were written in Chancery standard was the first poet to
have been buried in Poets Corner of Westminister Abbey.
Among his many works which include: The Book of the Duchess, the House of Fame, The
Legend of good Women and Trolius and Gryseide, Chaucer is best known for his work The
Canterbury Tales. This is a collection of stories written in Middle English (mostly written in
verse, although some are in prose), that are presented as part of a story- telling contest by a
group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southward to the shrine of saint
Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Ta bard
Inn at Southward on their return.
Chaucer is a significant figure in developing the legitimacy of vernacular Middle English, at a
time when the dominant literary languages in England were still French and Latin. The first
recorded association of Valentines Day with romantic love is in Chaucers parliament of
Foules of 1382.
At this time literature was being written in various languages in England, including Latin,
Norman- French , English, and the multilingual nature of audience. For literature in the 14
th
Century can be illustrated by the example Of John Gower (1330-1408) a contemporary of
William Langland and a personal friend of Geoffrey Chaucer. Gower is remembered primarily
for three major works: The Mirror de Omme, Vox Clamantis and Confessio Amantis; Three
long poems written in Anglo-Norman Latin and Middle English respectively which are united
by common moral and political themes.
Significant religious works were also created in the 14
th
Century, including works by an
anonymous author in the manuscript called The Katherine Group and by Julian of Norwich
(1342-1416) and Richard Rolle. Julians revelations of divine Love (1, 393) is believed to be the
first published book written by a woman in the English Language, its Chronicles to some
extent, her extensive pilgrimages to various holy Sites in Europe and Asia.
A major work from the 15
th
Century is Le Morte dArthur by Sir Thomas Malory, which was
printed by Caxton in 1485. This is a compilation of some French and English Arthurian
Romances and was among the earliest books printed in England. It was popular and influential
in the later revival interest in the Arthurian Legends.


4. Jane Austin
Jane Austen's works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century
and are part of the transition to 19th-century realism.[157] Her plots, though fundamentally
comic, highlight the dependence of women on marriage to secure social standing and
economic security.[158] Austen brings to light the hardships women faced, who usually did
not inherit money, could not work and where their only chance in life depended on the man
they married. She reveals not only the difficulties women faced in her day, but also what was
expected of men and of the careers they had to follow. This she does with wit and humour
and with endings where all characters, good or bad, receive exactly what they deserve. Her
work brought her little personal fame and only a few positive reviews during her lifetime, but
the publication in 1869 of her nephew's A Memoir of Jane Austen introduced her to a wider
public, and by the 1940s she had become accepted as a major writer. The second half of the
20th century saw a proliferation of Austen scholarship and the emergence of a Janeite fan
culture. Austen's works include Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813),
Mansfield Park(1814), Emma (1815), Northanger Abbey (1817) and Persuasion (1817).

5. Daniel Defoe

6. Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley (17971851) is remembered as the author of Frankenstein (1818). The plot of
this is said to have come from a waking dream she had, in the company of Percy Shelley, Lord
Byron, and John Polidori, following a conversation about galvanism and the feasibility of
returning a corpse or assembled body parts to life, and on the experiments of the 18th-
century natural philosopher and poet Erasmus Darwin, who was said to have animated dead
matter.[143] Sitting around a log fire at Byron's villa, the company also amused themselves by
reading German ghost stories, prompting Byron to suggest they each write their own
supernatural tale.
Though John Keats shared Byron and Shelley's radical politics, "his best poetry is not
political",[144] but is especially noted for its sensuous music and imagery, along with a
concern with material beauty and the transience of life.[145] Among his most famous works
are: "The Eve of St Agnes", "Ode to Psyche", "La Belle Dame sans Merci", "Ode to a
Nightingale", "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode on Melancholy", "To Autumn" and the incomplete
Hyperion, a 'philosophical' poem in blank verse, which was "conceived on the model of
Milton's Paradise Lost ".[146] Keats' letters "are among the finest in English" and important
"for their discussion of his aesthetic ideas", including 'negative capability' ".[147] Keats has
always been regarded as a major Romantic, "and his stature as a poet has grown steadily
through all changes of fashion".[148]

7. John Milton
John Milton is one of the greatest English Poets who wrote at this time of religious flux and
political upheaval. Milton, best known for his epic poem, Paradise Lost (1611), among other
important poems are Allegro (1631), Penseroso (1634), Comus (a masque) (1638), Lucidas,
Paradise regained (1671), Samson Agonistes (1671). Miltons poetry and prose reflect deep
personal convictions a passion for freedom and self determination and the urgent issues and
political turbulence of his days. Writing English, Latin, and Italian, he achieved international
renown within his life time and his celebrated Aeropagitica written in condemnation of pre-
publication censorship, is among historys most influential and impassioned defenses of free
speech and freedom of the press. William Hayleys 1796 biography called him the greatest
English Author and he remains generally regarded as one of the preeminent in the English
Language.
The largest and most important poetic form of the era was satire. In general, publication of
satire was done anonymously. There were great dangers in being associated with a satire. On
the one hand, defamation law was a wide net, and it was difficult for a satirist to avoid
prosecution if he were proven to have written a piece that seemed to criticize a noble. On the
other hand, wealthy individuals would respond to satire as often as not by having the
suspected poet physically attacked by ruffians. John Dryden was set upon for being merely
suspected of having written the Satire on Mankind. A consequence of this anonymity is that a
great many poems, some of them of merit, are unpublished and largely unknown.

8. William Shakespeare
9. Thomas Malory