Writing a novel set in the distant past is a tricky task, a fact of which I am constantly reminded as I tinker with the beginnings of a novel whose main action takes place in Victorian England.
There are all those obscure little details: could a middle-class woman of 1853 get into her corsets without a maid? What kinds of cheese would have been in her particular kitchen? How soon did publications from London reach the provinces? Relatively few readers will know the answers to these questions, but they're still crucial.
Even more problematically, there's the issue of the language itself. Both Victorian speech and Victorian prose are quite different from their contemporary equivalents; how does a "modern" author find a style and sound that feel neither jarringly anachronistic on the one hand, nor pedantically slavish on the other?
To help me with this question, I've been revisiting some favorite (more or less) recent novels set in the (more or less) same period. Herewith, a brief and by no means complete, or even thorough, list of these books. Each seems to me to be successful both in capturing some aspect of the period's mood or essence, and in meditating on themes that perplex us in our present moment.
For the convenience of those of you how might want to browse further, I've linked the book titles to Amazon listings and the author names either to the author's web site or, failing that, to some interesting interview or article on them.
Margaret Atwood: Alias Grace: A Novel
Julian Barnes: Arthur and George
A.S. Byatt: Possession
Andrea Barrett: The Voyage of the Narwhal
Tracy Chevalier: Remarkable Creatures
Michael Cox: The Meaning of Night
John Fowles: The French Lieutenant's Woman
Peter Lovesy: Waxwork
Charles Palliser: Quincunx
Jay Parini: The Last Station
Iain Pears: Stone's Fall
Jean Rhys: Wide Sargasso Sea
Dan Simmons: Drood
Colm Toibin: The Master
Sarah Waters: Affinity
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