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Curated category

19th-century English novelists

  • Charles DickensOn the 12th of May 1824, twelve-year-old Charles Dickens boarded a small boat to visit his father inside the Marshalsea debtors' prison in Southwark.
  • Percy Bysshe ShelleyOn a summer day in 1804, Percy Bysshe Shelley stood before the wooden paling fence at Eton College. He held a bag of gunpowder he had stolen from the school…
  • Mary ShelleyMary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born in Somers Town, London on the 30th of August 1797. Her mother died just eleven days after giving birth to her from…
  • Rudyard KiplingRudyard Kipling was born on the 30th of December 1865 in Bombay, British India. His parents were Alice Kipling and John Lockwood Kipling.
  • Jane AustenJane Austen arrived in the world on the 16th of December 1775 within the quiet valley of Steventon, Hampshire. Her father George Austen wrote to his wife…
  • Lewis CarrollCharles Lutwidge Dodgson entered the world on the 27th of January 1832 at All Saints' Vicarage in Daresbury, Cheshire. He was the oldest boy and third of…
  • Thomas HardyThomas Hardy was born on the 2nd of June 1840 in Higher Bockhampton, a small hamlet east of Dorchester. His father worked as a stonemason and local builder…
  • Benjamin DisraeliBenjamin D'Israeli was born on the 21st of December 1804 at 6 King's Road, Bedford Row, Bloomsbury. His family carried a Sephardic Jewish mercantile…
  • George EliotMary Ann Evans was born on the 22nd of November 1819 at South Farm, part of the Arbury Hall estate in Nuneaton, Warwickshire.
  • John Russell, 1st Earl RussellJohn Russell entered the world on the 18th of August 1792 as the third son of John Russell, who would become the sixth Duke of Bedford.
  • Samuel Butler (novelist)Samuel Butler was born on the 4th of December 1835 at the rectory in Langar, Nottinghamshire. His father Rev Thomas Butler had been a son of Dr Samuel Butler…
  • Harriet MartineauHarriet Martineau was born on the 12th of June 1802 in Norwich, England. Her mother Elizabeth hired a wet nurse to feed her infant daughter because she could…