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The Vicar of Wakefield

Though published in 1766, The Vicar of Wakefield was one of the most popular and widely read books of the Victorian era. References to Vicar in Victorian literature abound: George Eliot, Austen, Dickens, Mary Shelly, Charlotte Brontë, Alcott, Goethe, and many more famous writers all mention Vicar in their books. The plot concerns the titular vicar, Charles Primrose, a mild-mannered and forgiving man who lives with his family in a country parish.

Oliver Goldsmith · Drama · 33 ch

The Virginian

The narrator, a man from “back East” on his way to a cattle ranch, stops in Medicine Bow, Wyoming, and witnesses the enigmatic title character—the Virginian—rope a wild pony after many other cowboys failed. The Virginian is revealed to be the narrator’s escort to his destination, where the Virginian is employed. After getting a taste of the Western way of life in town, the two set off on the remaining 263-mile journey to the ranch, sparking a friendship.

Owen Wister · Adventure · 38 ch

The Voyage Out

Miss Rachel Vinrace, aged twenty-four and previously interested only in music, is on a voyage both literal and metaphorical. An ocean cruise with her father leaves her for the summer at her Aunt’s villa in an unnamed South American country, where she meets the English inhabitants of the local town’s hotel. As the season progresses she starts to become entangled in their own lives and passions, and through those burgeoning acquaintances and friendships the discovery of her own nature grows.

Virginia Woolf · Drama · 27 ch

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle

After discovering an injured squirrel, young Tommy Stubbins is introduced to Doctor Dolittle. Enamored by the Doctor’s ability to speak with animals and his wonderful house full of creatures from around the world, Tommy convinces the Doctor to take him as an apprentice. Together with Polynesia the parrot, Jip the dog, and an African prince named Bumpo, they set out in search of the famed naturalist Long Arrow, son of Golden Arrow, who has gone missing.

Hugh Lofting · Adventure · 61 ch

The War of the Worlds

H. G. Wells’ classic tale of alien invasion has to this day never been out of print.

H. G. Wells · Sci Fi · 27 ch

The Warden

The Warden is concerned with the unassuming Rev. Septimus Harding, who has for many years been the Warden of Hiram’s Hospital in the fictional town of Barchester. This “hospital” is what we would today probably call an aged-care or retirement home.

Anthony Trollope · Drama · 21 ch

The Warlord of Mars

The Warlord of Mars begins after the previous installment in the Martian series abruptly ends: John Carter’s beloved princess Dejah Thoris has been imprisoned in the Temple of the Sun, whose rooms only revolve back to the entrance once every Barsoomian year. Now, Carter must mount a rescue to save the princess from certain doom. The novel, a fast-paced and straightforward tale of swashbuckling adventure, is another solid entry in Burroughs’ “swords-and-planets” corpus.

Edgar Rice Burroughs · Fantasy · 16 ch

The Water of the Wondrous Isles

The Water of the Wondrous Isles is a landmark in fantasy fiction. First published a year after Morris’s death in 1897 by Kelmscott Press—Morris’s own printing company—the novel follows Birdalone, a young girl who is stolen as a baby by a witch who takes her to serve in the woods of Evilshaw. After she encounters a wood fairy that helps her escape the witch’s clutches, Birdalone embarks on a series of adventures across the titular Wondrous Isles.

William Morris · Fantasy · 109 ch

The Water-Babies

Uneducated and regularly mistreated by his master, his filth only matched by his moral and spiritual baseness, Tom is a typical Victorian chimney sweep. While on a special job at a noble’s estate, prejudice pins a crime on him and he flees in fear of retaliation. The chase eventually takes him to a stream in which he bathes for the first time and, doing so, finds himself reborn as a water-baby.

Charles Kingsley · Fantasy · 10 ch

The Way We Live Now

The Way We Live Now is Anthony Trollope’s longest novel, published in two volumes in 1875 after first appearing in serial form. After an extended visit to Australia and New Zealand in 1872, Trollope was outraged on his return to England by a number of financial scandals, and was determined to expose the dishonesty, corruption, and greed they embodied. The Way We Live Now centers around a foreign businessman, Augustus Melmotte, who has come to prominence in London despite rumors about his past dealings on the Continent.

Anthony Trollope · Drama · 100 ch

The Way of All Flesh

The Way of All Flesh is often considered to be Samuel Butler’s masterpiece, and is frequently included in many lists of best English-language novels of the 20th century. Despite this acclaim, Butler never published it in his lifetime—perhaps because the novel, a scathing, funny, and poignant satire of Victorian life, would have hit his contemporaries too close to home. The novel traces four generations of the Pontifex family, though the central character is Ernest Pontifex, the third-generation wayward son.

Samuel Butler · Drama · 87 ch

The Well at the World’s End

The King of Upmeads has four sons who are tired of living in the peaceable kingdom, and yearn to adventure abroad. Three are sent out, but the fourth, Ralph, is chosen to stay home. He can’t stand being left behind, and so he runs away, wandering to the many lands beyond Upmeads.

William Morris · Fantasy · 119 ch

The Well of Loneliness

Confident of a son, Sir Philip and Lady Anna Gordon plan to name their first child Stephen. Instead they receive a daughter—but they decide to keep the name anyway. Young Stephen Gordon continues to surprise her parents with her boisterous play, demands for shorter hair, and insistence on riding her horse astride.

Radclyffe Hall · Drama · 214 ch

The Wheels of Chance

A draper’s assistant takes to the road on a cycling holiday and falls in with a young woman riding alone along the English coast. A comedy of runaways, rescuers, and mistaken motives that turns into a gentle story of freedom and first love.

H. G. Wells · Comedy · 26 ch

The White Company

It is the Middle Ages, and the Hundred Years War rages on in England and France. Alleyne Edricson, the son of an English landowner, is training as a novice at an abbey. As his training draws to a close, he’s called upon to spend a year in the outside world to decide if he really wants to devote his life to prayer and contemplation.

Arthur Conan Doyle · Historical · 38 ch

The Wind in the Willows

The Wind in the Willows, the story of four animals and their adventures in the idyllic English countryside, started out as bedtime stories Grahame would tell his son. He eventually started writing them down, and finally produced this much-loved childrens classic. In continuous print since 1908, The Wind in the Willows has been illustrated countless times and adapted to stage, radio, and screen.

Kenneth Grahame · Fantasy · 12 ch

The Wings of the Dove

The Wings of the Dove is perhaps the most well-received of Henry James’s novels. First published in 1902, it follows Kate Croy and Merton Densher, an engaged couple in late-Victorian London, who meet Milly Theale, a wealthy American heiress. Milly, though young and lively, is burdened with a fatal disease.

Henry James · Drama · 38 ch

The Wisdom of Father Brown

Father Brown, G. K. Chesterton’s crime-solving Catholic priest, is back in this second collection of Father Brown short stories.

G. K. Chesterton · Mystery · 12 ch

The Woman in White

The Woman in White tells the story of Walter Hartright, a young and impoverished drawing teacher who falls in love with his aristocratic pupil, Laura Fairlie. He cannot hope to marry her, however, and she is married off against her will to a baronet, Sir Percival Glyde, who is seeking her fortune. The terms of her marriage settlement prevent Glyde accessing her money while she lives, so together with his deceptively charming and cunning friend, Count Fosco, they hatch an unscrupulous deception to do so nonetheless.

Wilkie Collins · Mystery · 59 ch

The Wonderful Visit

The Wonderful Visit is an early work by H. G. Wells, published in the same year as The Time Machine.

H. G. Wells · Fantasy · 53 ch