Oliver Goldsmith's 18th century novel "The Vicar of Wakefield" was so popular in Victorian times that it is mentioned in many classics of that era including George Eliot's "Middlemarch," Jane Austen's "Emma," Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" and Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", amongst others. It is the story of Dr. Charles Primrose, the titular Vicar, his wife Deborah and their six children who live an idyllic life in a country parish. The Vicar...

Fully entitled "Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty," this novel was Dickens' first attempt at a historical novel. As such, it is the precursor to his more famous "A Tale of Two Cities", in which his exploration of mob violence, and especially the effect of public events on individual lives, becomes apparent. This work centers on Barnaby Rudge, a mentally simple son, and his loving mother, who are a part of the small village of Epping Forest,...

Chronicles a sensitive young Englishman's travels as an attack on the conventions of fiction writing and a celebration of eccentricity

Follows three unworldly people as they find themselves trapped by unwise love in the English midlands of the early 1800s

In 18th-century England, when Lady Farrell's husband becomes the prime suspect in the murder of Sir Edward Crick, she enlists the help of Dr. Thomas Silkstone--an anatomist and pioneering forensic detective--to solve the murder.

Hurtled back through time more than two hundred years to 1743 Scotland, Claire Randall finds herself caught in the midst of an unfamiliar world torn apart by violence, pestilence, and revolution and haunted by her growing feelings for a young soldier, James Fraser

In 1780s London, Dr. Thomas Silkstone investigates the mysterious disappearance of the sole survivor of an ill-fated scientific expedition, which is linked to a potion that has the power to raise the dead, drawing him into a dark world of vengeance, murder and the trafficking of corpses for profit.

When Betsy Zoon is taken captive in a surprise Indian raid, she faces brutality and hardship, but also unexpected kindness. She draws strength from a native, and finds herself torn between her pious upbringing and the intense new feelings this compelling man awakens within her. Hans Bauer is greatly anguished by Betsy's captivity and turns to his foster sister Tessa for comfort. Eagerly, Tessa responds, overlooking troubling signs of Hans's hunger...

Catherine Morland's sentimental illusions about life and love crumble as she enters into adulthood and encounters the politics, pitfalls, and machinations of Bath society

In the notorious mental hospital known as Bedlam, Dr. Thomas Silkstone seeks out a patient with whom he is on intimate terms. But he is unprepared for the state in which he finds Lady Lydia Farrell. Shocked into action, Thomas vows to help free Lydia by appealing to the custodian of her affairs, Mr. Nicholas Lupton. But when Silkstone arrives at the Boughton Estate to speak to Lupton, he finds that another form of madness has taken over the village....