A Victorian Celebration

A couple of years back Allie hosted the first Victorian Celebration event; a couple of months over the summer dedicated to reading a lot of Victorian literature, and this year she has brought it back! I'm excited because despite being a very good little Classics Clubber back when I first started I've totally slipped with it recently and I need some encouragement to get back into the Classics. As you will see the lack of reading them is not for lack of availability!

Because I'm me and I really enjoy making piles of books that annoy the hell out of my husband (sorry Rhys) I decided to pull out one book from each author that I own on Allie's list and make a big pile of potentials. I didn't pull out any stuff I don't feel inspired to read so actually this pile is entirely made up of actual possibility as opposed to usually when I make ridiculously ambitious piles or lists full of books I don't really want to read. Anyway! I have no idea where to start, except possibly with a Bronte and possibly The Professor primarily because I won it during the last Victorian Celebration which means it's been sitting unread on my shelf longer than anything by any of the Bronte's has any right to!

If you have strong feelings about any of the books in my pile please let me know! I'll probably only have time to read one or two but as usual I like to give myself options. Here's what I've got:

• Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte - I started this a while ago and was really into it but then I misplaced it and by the time it turned up again I'd forgotten what it was about. It's little though and might be a good starting place.
• Ditto for The Professor by Charlotte Bronte which I've also started and got distracted from right about the same time I was losing Agnes Grey. One of these two it likely to be my first read because I know I love the Brontes so there will be no putting off there. 
• North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell I feel like I've at least read some of before, but I have no recollection and maybe we just talked about it a lot when I read Cranford? I don't know, but I enjoy Gaskell's writing as a general rule so I think it's probably worth finding out if I have actually read it already or not!
• Middlemarch by George Eliot. This is the only book on this pile which makes me sigh. I nearly didn't even pull it out because it's been on my shelf longer than almost anything else and I struggled with Adam Bede and Silas Marner during school but I read the blurb and I feel like I should at least give it a go. It does sound intriguing and like the protagonist could potentially be really cool. 
• Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allen Poe. I love this edition, isn't it gorgeous? This has also been on my shelf for aaaaages and I feel like I might dip in and out of it during the event. Maybe.
• The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett I bought during our recent trip to the Persephone bookshop pretty much based on my love of The Secret Garden. That said my current reading of the other Persephone book that I bought while there is making me think that Persephone books are probably worth reading regardless of whether you know the author or not. 
• The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. So I know several people will be shouting at me to read this (Ellie Lit Nerd I'm looking at you) because it's Wilkie and I did love The Woman in White when I read it all those millennia ago, so I might. I might.
• The last two don't probably count because they were both published after Victoria died although both the authors also count as Victorian authors but E. Nesbit's Fairy Stories wasn't published until 1977 according to the internet and my edition, but obviously must have been written a long time before as she died in 1924. Phantasies by George MacDonald was published just after, in 1905, and I'm very intrigued by it so I might try to slip it in somewhere under the guise of Fairytale Friday!

So there we go, an exciting pile. If you want to sign up to join in the Victorian fun you can do so at Allie's blog