The Challenge Begins

I have written a number of times in this blog about how Elaine from Random Jottings has been a great source of authors who are new to me. Now I have something else to thank her for. About a week ago, Elaine wrote that she was

going take the Victorian challenge. I asked for more information which as always she gladly provided.

Organized by Alex from Paris, the challenge is to read from three to six books either about the Victorian era or that take place in the Victorian era. Since the Victorian novel is one of my primary reading interests this is something I had to sign up for. In my case it provides some structure for my reading and also helps me to achieve one of my goals - reading my way through the books that I already own.


The challenge began on January 1st and runs through June 30th. Given everything else that I have going on, I decided for once in my life to start modestly so I signed on for only three books. My choices are "Daniel Deronda" by George Eliot (pictured upper right), "The Way We Live Now" by Anthony Trollope, (pictured center) and "Mary Barton" by Elizabeth Gaskell (pictured immediate right). Another reason for picking only three books is that both "Daniel Deronda" and "The Way We Live Now" are fairly lengthy.

Trollope is one of my favorite authors, I have read almost 20 of his novels which puts me about half way through his works. Gaskell is a new author to me so I am looking for a new experience. In the case of George Eliot, I have read all of her novels except this one and "Romola" which I think I am going to pass on.

I think Eliot is one of the greatest writers that I have ever read and the first 150 pages of this book has done nothing to change my opinion. I forgot to mention is that the other part of the challenge is the opportunity to post about one's reading on a blog(victorianchallenge.blogspot.com) that Alex has setup. I am not sure how I am going to work that with this blog so we will see how this develops. Anyway on with the challenge.