Ranking 19th-Century Novelists

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Elizabeth Gaskell

As I currently read Elizabeth Gaskell’s very good but not great 1848 book Mary Barton, I thought about the hierarchy of fiction authors in a 19th century that saw the blossoming of the novel as a form of writing.

There were of course the no-brainer superstars (whether fame came during or after their lives) who each wrote three, four, or in some cases many more memorable novels — including Jane Austen, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy of England; Walter Scott of Scotland; Honore de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Emile Zola of France; Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy of Russia; Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Mark Twain of the United States; and Henry James of the U.S. and England.

There were also the excellent 19th-century authors who each wrote perhaps only one or two truly great novels, but those books were stone-cold classics. Among them were the Bronte sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne), Louisa May Alcott, Gustave Flaubert, Nikolai Gogol, Alexander Pushkin, George Sand, Mary Shelley, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Thackeray, and Ivan Turgenev.

Then there were the 1800s writers who were at times excellent, but might be classified in a tier slightly or significantly below the above authors. They included R.D. Blackmore, Lewis Carroll, Kate Chopin, Joseph Conrad, James Fenimore Cooper, William Dean Howells, Stendhal, Robert Louis Stevenson, Anthony Trollope, Oscar Wilde, and the aforementioned Gaskell, to name a few.

Mary Barton was Gaskell’s debut novel, and it takes a searing look at harsh working-class life and wide class divisions in 1839-1842 England while also offering some romantic intrigue. Why did I find the often-compelling book very good but not great? Well, it’s kind of wordy even by 19th-century-novel standards, and all the caused-at-least-partly-by-poverty death depicted in it – while realistic – can be overwhelming.

Before I go further, I should say that where I rank 19th-century novelists is strictly my own personal opinion; where you place them would likely differ. Heck, should I even be ranking authors? 🙂

Of course, there were also 1800s writers who were great in mostly a genre sort of way – whether that genre was sci-fi, horror, detective fiction, adventure, youth-oriented fiction, and so on. I’m thinking Arthur Conan Doyle, H. Rider Haggard, Edgar Allan Poe, Johanna Spyri (Heidi), Bram Stoker, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, etc.

I’ll conclude by noting that this post only mentioned 19th-century novelists I’ve read. Some of them (such as Nikolai Gogol and Oscar Wilde) were also famous or more famous for short stories, plays, and/or other non-novel forms of writing. And the work of several of the included authors spilled at least somewhat into the 20th century.

Your thoughts on this topic? Agree or disagree with my rankings? Other 19th-century novelists you’d like to mention?

A final note: It was very sad to hear about the October 28 death of Patrick Stewart, 86, the magnificent actor whose wide range of roles included various Shakespeare characters and Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation (one of my very favorite TV series). Relating to this week’s post, Stewart starred as well in a 1975 miniseries based on Elizabeth Gaskell’s 1855 novel North and South and as Ebenezer Scrooge in a 1999 TV production of Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. Stewart also played every character in that Dickens book in an acclaimed one-man stage production.

Misty the cat asks: “Why am I moving forward when the clocks just went back?”

My comedic 2024 book – the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed – is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for the book features a talking cat: 🙂 (Not my voice. 🙂 )

I’m also the author of a 2017 literary-trivia book…

…and a 2012 memoir that focuses on cartooning and more, including many encounters with celebrities.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece – about the upcoming November elections in my town and the U.S. – is here.

39 thoughts on “Ranking 19th-Century Novelists”

  2. Another great post, Dave, and I’ll begin at the end by adding my sorrow to yours over the passing of the excellent Patrick Stewart. I loved him in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and of course as Jean-Luc Picard, as well as the old BBC ‘I, Claudius’ dramatisation of the Robert Graves novels; Stewart had a small part as Sejanus, who comes to a sticky end after a plot against the Emperor, and also sported a full head of hair for a change! He also starred later in ‘Moby Dick’ as Ahab, and we were privileged to see him with Ian McKellan in ‘No Man’s Land’ by Harold Pinter. May he live long and prosper in the undiscovered country, now discovered by him. Incidentally, Walter Koenig, who played Chekhov alongside Stewart, passed a couple of days before him, but hasn’t received such widespread accolade, which is a shame. Who didn’t love his ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner?’ line when the Klingons were coming, or his search for ‘the nuclear wessels’ in the film with the whales? What else? Oh yes, those authors. I read and love ‘Mary Barton’ at university, although I took on board the warning in the Preface that the book wasn’t one of the best, being bifurcated between the story of Mary and Jem and that of John Barton and his murder of Henry Carson. No matter, I loved the use of vernacular diction, Mary’s grumpy aunt – made so by her accident when working in a factory as a girl – and her damning speech against married women going out to work. I did wonder how the young girls managed to sit up all night straining their eyes sewing and still manage to do a day’s work at the factory, but I guess that was a contributory factor in the industrial accidents which occurred. I was also told that Dickens’s ‘Hard Times’ was the superior story of working life in Manchester, and that may be so; but I came down firmly on the side of Gaskell, who lived and worked with the poor of that town, against Dickens, who just visited for a few weeks. In the final analysis I believe readers find their own favourites, despite what the ‘experts’ consider to be the superior works; rather like Rita, of Willy Russell’s ‘Educating Rita’, telling how she ‘put right’ a boy who’d declared a preference for a book considered as inferior to another. Getting above herself, Rita totally forgets that ‘superiority’ or ‘inferiority’ in the eyes of the critics plays little part in the personal preferences of readers; and that’s the hill where I take my stand. Good to talk (rant?) Dave; have a good week and see you next time. 🙂

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    • Thank you, tidalscribe.com! Yes, LOTS of great 19th-century authors — many of whom, as you noted, had their novels adapted for the screen long after most of these writers had died. They indeed could not have imagined that. (Well, maybe Jules Verne could have imagined that in his prescient sci-fi novels. 🙂 )

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  4. 1. Oh, Misty! He asks good questions, doesn’t he, Dave? Love his musings!
    2. I think you can (and should!) do rankings as you please. I always learn from your insights and marvel at how impeccably well read you are! I have nothing to add…other than admiration! ❤️
    3. And… I agree. Still a gut punch for me…the Patrick Stewart loss. Somehow he seemed ageless…Picard magic? The Next Generation was a beloved series. ❤️

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  5. Dave, I leave the hierarchy of fiction authors in a 19th century to experts like you 🙂 Some of the authors you mention were required reading in high school English literature class. As a young reader, the works of Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Conan Doyle captivated my imagination. I don’t recall reading any of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novels.

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    • Thank you, Rosaliene! Well, let’s go with “would like to be an expert”; there are a ton of 19th-century novels I’ve yet to read. 🙂 Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Conan Doyle are definitely catnip to many younger readers (and of course older ones, too). As for Elizabeth Gaskell, I don’t get the sense that her work is or has been a part of a lot of high school English literature classes — unlike novels such as “Jane Eyre,” “The Scarlet Letter,” “Silas Marner,” “The Great Gatsby,” “The Grapes of Wrath,” “Native Son,” “Animal Farm,” “Lord of the Flies,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” etc.

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    • Thank you, Ada! “Mary Barton” is worth reading, even as it can be a bit of a slog. And while the only work of Stoker’s I’ve read is “Dracula,” it’s quite a book! Finally, the desire to reread a novel is indeed a sign that it’s great!

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  8. Great post, dear Dave! I love your classification of 19th-century novelists. It’s a wonderful reading checklist.
    I was also deeply saddened to hear about Patrick Stewart; he was really great!
    PS . Misty is adorable pondering daylight saving time!

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  9. Hi Dave, I like your ranking. I’m not sure how I would rank them, the thing is I read some of them, not all in different ages and states of mind, so I like to think of reading those authors as three different people, I’m not a trinity obviously, but it feels like my life is divided so drastically that I can’t tell I’m the same person throughout the course of the last 40 years.
    I would like to read them as one person so that I could compare and do my own ranking. I would definitely put Jane Eire up there in my list and the French writers you have mentioned, it was my early days of literary interest age 10 to 20. Later from 20 to 30 – English and Russian writers. 30 to 40 – American writers and now I’m pretty much in German mood.

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    • Thank you, Marie! Yes, ranking can be enjoyable and hard to resist — and it helps if one is totally open to the fact that other people will give authors, actors, and others different rankings. 🙂

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