Challenge: "The English Novel"

The English Novel  by Professor Timothy Spurgin
Audiocourse by The Great Courses
Rating: 5
Listened:  November 2011

Borrowed from the library, I had high hopes for this course based on his other course, The Art of Reading.  I listen to the CD's while driving so one requirement is that they are interesting and this did not disappoint. This course begins with what is typically regarded as the first English novel, Pamela (1740) by Samuel Richardson and ends with notable contemporary works by Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie and Zadie Smith.  18th century books such as Tom Jones (1749) by Henry Fielding, Tristam Shandy (1759-1767) by Laurence Sterne and The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe have been added to my TBR pile.  Works by Sir Walter Scott (Waverly 1814) and Henry James (The Portrait of a Lady 1881) join other 19th century "to-be-read" authors: Austen, Bronte, Dickens, Thackeray and Eliot.  In Spurgin's discussion of a particular novel, he not only talks about the work itself, but spends time on the author's biography and the time period in which he/she wrote.  He ties in critical historical and social events that influence the writer and the work.  His love for literature is evident and so each lecture was a pleasure to listen to.  I would highly recommend.

In 2012, I have challenged myself to read half the novels in the course.  The number in parenthesis is the rating given to the book.  I use the GoodReads system. 

1 - didn't like it
2 - it was ok
3 - liked it
4 - really liked it
5 - it was amazing

Here is the list:

• 1719 - 1720 - Love in Excess by Eliza Haywood
• 1740 - Pamela by Samuel Richardson - read January 2011 (5)
• 1747 - 1749 - Clarissa by Samuel Richardson (divided into 9 ibook volumes)
•  Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3,  
• 1749 - Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
• 1759 - 1767 - Tristam Shandy by Laurence Sterne
• 1778 - Evelina by Frances Burney
• 1794 - The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
• 1813 - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - read a while ago (5)
• 1814 - Waverley by Sir Walter Scott
• 1815 - Emma by Jane Austen - read in Feb 2011 (4)
• 1826 - Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper (American)
• 1836 - 1837 - The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
• 1837 - 1843 - Lost Illusions by Honore de Balzac (French)
• 1847 - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - read in Nov. 2009 (5) 
• 1847 - Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
• 1847 - 1848 - Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
• 1849 - 1850 - David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
• 1851 - Moby Dick by Herman Melville (American)
• 1852 - 1853 - Bleak House by Charles Dickens
• 1857 - Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert - read in May 2011 (3).  My dislike for M. Bovary affected how I felt about the book. I could appreciate the literary style but did not like the story. 
• 1860 - Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
• 1860 - 1861 - Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• 1865 - 1869 - War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
• 1871 - 1872 - Middlemarch by George Eliot
• 1875 - 1877 - Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy- read in Sept 2011 (4)