novelists, english

A biography of Charles Dickens, discussing how his father's debts forced him to go to work in a shoe polish factory, and looking at how his observations of the poor led him to write novels with an eye toward bringing attention to the plight of London's destitute children.

Recounts the story behind the 1816 night in which a gathering of English poet Lord Byron's friends led to the creation of "Frankenstein" and the first vampire story, and the events which followed that fateful night and led to the deaths of nearly all those present.

Excerpts from the writings of Jane Austen offer insight into her views on a variety of subjects, including marriage, education, fashion, friendship, pride, poverty, and love.

Biography of the author of "Dracula, " detailing his role as the manager of London's Lyceum Theatre, his cultivation of actor Henry Irving, and exploring the link between Stoker's life and his fiction.

Presents a biography of Douglas Adams, British author of the popular book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and its sequels and includes information about his family and writing life.

Explores how the Bronte sisters became cultural symbols in the mid-eighteenth century, despite the fact that their novels scandalized English society and the truth about their identities shocked their readers.

Quentin Bell, nephew of Virginia Woolf, draws from family journals, as well as Woolf's personal correspondence and diaries, to tell the life story of his famous relative, discussing her childhood, her marriage, her affair with Vita Sackville-West, her writing career, and her 1941 suicide.

A biography of the great 19th-century English novelist Charles Dickens.