Social novel
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The social novel is a genre of novel that originated in the early Victorian era in England. Alternative names for the broad genre include social problem novel and condition of England novel; the industrial novel is a subgenre. Social novels centre around the effects of social and economic conditions on the individual, and often aim to bring societal attention to social problems.
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Practitioners
Practitioners include Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Kingsley and Harriet Martineau; later authors such as Thomas Hardy and George Gissing are sometimes also included.
The term has been applied to a wide variety of novels, but some well-known examples include:
- Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist (1837)
- Charlotte Brontë's Shirley (1849)
- Elizabeth Gaskell's Ruth (1853)
- George Eliot's Felix Holt (1866)
Industrial novel
The industrial novel is a genre of early Victorian literature. A subclass of the social novel, it portrays the difficult conditions of life of the urban working class during the Industrial Revolution. Many industrial novels featured sympathetic portrayals of Chartists or strikers.
Typical examples of the genre are:
- Charles Dickens' Hard Times (1854)
- Benjamin Disraeli's Sybil, or the Two Nations (1845)
- George Eliot's Felix Holt (1866)
- Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South (1854) and Mary Barton (1848)
- Charles Kingsley's Alton Locke (1849)
A modern take on the industrial novel is provided by David Lodge in Nice Work (1988) .
Further reading
- Childers JW. 'Industrial culture and the Victorian novel'. In The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel (David D, ed), Cambridge University Press, 2001
- Gallagher, Catherine. (1985). 'The industrial reformation of English fiction : social discourse and narrative form,' 1832-1867. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
- Williams, Raymond. (1958). 'Culture and Society, 1780-1950.' New York, Columbia University Press.
See also
- Illegitimacy in fiction
- Dystopia
- Illegitimacy in fiction
- Political fiction
- Problem play
- Proletarian literature
- Social science fiction
