English literature- this is a centuries-old history, great writers, unique works that reflect the characteristics of the national character. We grow up with the books of these great authors, we develop with their help. It is impossible to convey the importance of English writers and the contribution they made to world literature. We offer you 10 internationally recognized masterpieces of English literature.
1. William Shakespeare - “King Lear”
The story of King Lear is the story of a man blinded by his own despotism, who, in his declining years, encounters the bitter truth of life for the first time. Endowed with unlimited power, Lear decides to divide his kingdom between his three daughters Cordelia, Goneril and Regan. On the day of his abdication, he expects flattering speeches and assurances of tender love from them. He knows in advance what his daughters will say, but he longs to once again listen to the praises addressed to him in the presence of the court and foreigners. Lear invites the youngest of them and the most beloved Cordelia to talk about his love in such a way that her words will prompt him to give her a “more extensive share than his sisters.” But proud Cordelia refuses to perform this ritual with dignity. A fog of rage obscures Lear’s eyes and, considering her refusal an attack on his power and dignity, he curses his daughter. Having deprived her of her inheritance, King Lear abdicates the throne in favor of his eldest daughters Goneril and Regan, not realizing the dire consequences of his action...
2. George Gordon Byron - “Don Juan”
“I am looking for a hero!..” This is how the poem “Don Juan”, written by the great English poet George Gordon Byron, begins. And his attention was attracted by a hero well known in world literature. But the image of the young Spanish nobleman Don Juan, who became a symbol of the seducer and womanizer, takes on new depth in Byron. He is unable to resist his passions. But often he himself becomes the object of harassment from women...
3. John Galsworthy - “The Forsyte Saga”
“The Forsyte Saga” is life itself, in all its tragedy, in joys and losses, a life that is not very happy, but accomplished and unique.
The first volume of “The Forsyte Saga” includes a trilogy consisting of novels: “The Owner,” “In the Loop,” “For Rent,” which presents the history of the Forsyte family over many years.
4. David Lawrence - “Women in Love”
David Herbert Lawrence shocked the consciousness of his contemporaries with the freedom with which he wrote about the relationship of the sexes. In the famous novels about the Brenguin family - “The Rainbow” (which was banned immediately after publication) and “Women in Love” (published in a limited edition, and in 1922 a censorship trial of its author took place) Lawrence describes the story of several married couples. Women in Love was filmed by Ken Russell in 1969 and won an Oscar.
“My great religion is the belief in blood and flesh, that they are wiser than the intellect. Our minds may make mistakes, but what our blood feels, believes, and says is always true.”
5. Somerset Maugham - “The Moon and a Penny”
One of Maugham's best works. A novel about which literary critics have been arguing for many decades, but still cannot come to a consensus - whether to consider the story of tragic life and death English artist Strickland as a kind of “free biography” of Paul Gauguin?
Whether this is true or not, “The Moon and a Penny” still remains the true pinnacle of English literature of the 20th century.
6. Oscar Wilde - “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
Oscar Wilde is a great English writer who gained fame as a brilliant stylist, an inimitable wit, an extraordinary personality of his time, a man whose name, through the efforts of enemies and a gossip-hungry mob, became a symbol of depravity. This edition includes the famous novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - the most successful and most scandalous of all the books created by Wilde.
7. Charles Dickens - “David Copperfield”
The famous novel “David Copperfield” by the great English writer Charles Dickens has gained the love and recognition of readers all over the world. Largely autobiographical, this novel tells the story of a boy forced to fight alone against a cruel, bleak world inhabited by evil teachers, selfish factory owners and soulless servants of the law. In this unequal war, David can only be saved by moral firmness, purity of heart and extraordinary talent, capable of turning a dirty ragamuffin into greatest writer England.
8. Bernard Shaw - “Pygmalimon”
The play begins on a summer evening in Covent Garden in London. A sudden torrential downpour of rain caught the pedestrians by surprise and forced them to take shelter under the portal of St. Paul's Cathedral. Among those gathered were professor of phonetics Henry Higgins and researcher of Indian dialects Colonel Pickering, who specially came from India to see the professor. The unexpected meeting delights both. The men begin a lively conversation, into which an incredibly dirty flower girl intervenes. While begging the gentlemen to buy a bouquet of violets from her, she makes such unimaginable inarticulate sounds that it horrifies Professor Higgins, who is discussing the advantages of his method of teaching phonetics. The disgruntled professor swears to the colonel that thanks to his lessons, this dirty woman can easily become a saleswoman in a flower shop, where now she won’t even be allowed to enter the door. Moreover, he swears that in three months he will be able to pass her off as the duchess at the envoy's reception.
Higgins gets down to business with great enthusiasm. Obsessed with the idea of turning a simple street girl into a real lady at any cost, he is absolutely confident of success, and does not think at all about the consequences of his experiment, which will radically change not only the fate of Eliza (that’s the girl’s name), but also his own life .
9. William Thackeray - “Vanity Fair”
The pinnacle of creativity of the English writer, journalist and graphic artist William Makepeace Thackeray was the novel “Vanity Fair”. All the characters in the novel - positive and negative - are involved, according to the author, in an “eternal circle of grief and suffering.” Rich in events, rich in subtle observations of the life of its time, imbued with irony and sarcasm, the novel “Vanity Fair” took pride of place in the list of masterpieces of world literature.
10. Jane Austen - “Sense and Sensibility”
“Sense and Sensibility” is one of best novels the wonderful English writer Jane Austen, who is rightly called the “first lady” of British literature. Among her most famous works are such masterpieces as “Pride and Prejudice”, “Emma”, “Northanger Abbey” and others. “Sense and Sensibility” is a so-called novel of morals, representing the love stories of two sisters: one of them is restrained and reasonable, the other is passionately devoted to emotional experiences. Heart dramas against the background of the conventions of society and ideas about duty and honor become a real “education of feelings” and are crowned with well-deserved happiness. The life of a large family, the characters and the twists and turns of the plot are described by Jane Austen easily, ironically and heartfeltly, with inimitable humor and purely English restraint.
The selection includes the most famous works of English writers. These are British novels, detective stories and stories popular with readers around the world. We didn't stop at one genre or time. There is science fiction, fantasy, humorous stories, dystopias, children's adventures and other masterpieces from the Middle Ages to the present. The books are different, but they have something in common. All of them made a tangible contribution to the development of world literature and art, reflecting the national characteristics of the inhabitants of Great Britain.
Famous English writers
The phrase “English literature” brings to mind a number of names. William Shakespeare, Somerset Maugham, John Galsworthy, Daniel Defoe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Charles Dickens - the list goes on for a long time. These writers are the luminaries of English classics. They have gone down in history forever, and more than one generation of book lovers will admire the subtlety and relevance of their works.Let's not forget about Iris Murdoch, John le Carre, JK Rowling, Ian McEwan, Joanne Harris, Julian Barnes and other talented contemporary English writers. Another shining example gifted author - Kazuo Ishiguro. In 2017 this famous British writer of Japanese origin received Nobel Prize according to literature. The selection includes his novel about touching love and sense of duty “The Remains of the Day.” Add and read. And then be sure to watch the excellent film adaptation - starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson - “At the End of the Day” (dir. James Ivory, 1993).
Literary awards and film adaptations
Almost all the books from this selection were awarded world literary prizes: Pulitzer, Booker, Nobel and others. No book list from the “Books Everyone Should Read” or “Best Books of All Time” series would be complete without the novels “1984” by George Orwell, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde, and the comedies and tragedies of Shakespeare.These works are a treasure trove of inspiration for directors, producers, and screenwriters. It’s hard to imagine that if Bernard Shaw had not written the play “Pygmalion,” we would not have seen the stunning transformation of Audrey Hepburn from an illiterate flower girl into a sophisticated aristocrat. We are talking about the film "My lovely lady"(dir. George Cukor, 1964).
Among modern books and their successful film adaptations, pay attention to The Long Fall. Nick Hornby wrote an ironic novel about the relationship between good human communication and the desire to live. The film of the same name with Pierce Brosnan and Toni Collette (dir. Pascal Chomel, 2013) turned out to be soulful and life-affirming.
Geographical information
Geographical confusion often arises when compiling such lists. Let's figure it out. England is an independent country that is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland along with three other countries: Scotland, Ireland and Wales. However, the term "English literature" includes the masterpieces of writers native to the entire United Kingdom. Therefore, you will find here the works of the Irishman Oscar Wilde, the Welshman Iain Banks, and the Scotsman Ken Follett.The selection of English writers and their works was impressive - more than 70 books. This is a real book challenge! Add the books you like and immerse yourself in a slightly prim, but so elegant world!
Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925).
Sir Henry Rider Haggard was born on June 22, 1856 in Bradenham, Norfolk, the son of Squire William Haggard, the eighth of his ten children. At the age of nineteen, Henry Rider Haggard fell deeply and, as it turned out, for the rest of his life in love with the daughter of a squire who lived next door, Lily Jackson. But the father considered his son’s intention to marry premature and considered it best to send him to South Africa as secretary to Henry Bulwer, the English governor of the province of Natal. Thus his only true love was destroyed, as Haggard later wrote. Having abruptly changed the young man’s personal destiny, a trip to South Africa determined his further creative destiny: it was Africa that became for Haggard an inexhaustible source of themes, plots, and human types of his numerous books, and the longing for lost love itself became one of the defining themes of the writer’s works, embodied in unusual images.
Africa also gave Haggard an intoxicating sense of personal freedom: due to his occupation and love of travel, he traveled a lot around Natal and the Transvaal, conquered by the boundless expanses of the African veld, the beauty of the inaccessible mountain peaks - Haggard poetically and romantically recreated these unique landscapes in many of his novels. He was fond of activities typical of an English gentleman in Africa - hunting, horseback riding, etc. However, unlike many of his compatriots, he was also interested in morals local residents, the Zulus, their history, culture, legends - Haggard became acquainted with all this first-hand, soon learning the Zulu language. He adopted the traditional “Englishman in Africa” dislike for the Boers and a patronizing, benevolent, paternalistic attitude towards the Zulus, for whom, Haggard, like the overwhelming majority of his compatriots, believed, the rule of the English was a blessing (however, as one can judge from some of his statements, he was aware of the devastating impact of the English invasion on traditional Zulu customs). Haggard retained this position of “enlightened imperialism” until the end of his life.
In 1878 Haggard became Master and Registrar of the Supreme Court in the Transvaal, resigned in 1879, went to England, married and returned to Natal with his wife at the end of 1880, deciding to become a farmer. However, Hagard farmed in South Africa for only a short time: already in September 1881, he finally settled in England. In 1884, Haggard passed the relevant exam and became a practicing lawyer. However, Haggard's legal practice was not attractive - he wanted to write.
Haggard tried his hand at writing historical, psychological and fantastic works with considerable success. Everything he created is marked by rich imagination, extraordinary verisimilitude and the scale of the narrative. Haggard became famous worldwide for his novels about adventures in South Africa, in which the fantastic element plays a significant role; the author's constant fascination lost worlds, the ruins of ancient mysterious civilizations, archaic cults of immortality and the reincarnation of souls made him, in the eyes of many critics, one of the undisputed forerunners of modern fantasy. The popular Haggard hero, white hunter and adventurer Allan Quartermain is central character many books.
For his contemporaries, Haggard was not only a popular prose writer, a writer of fascinating historical adventure novels. He is also a publicist, a singer of rural England, the measured and meaningful farming way of life, so familiar to Haggard from his Norfolk estate of Ditchingham. He was actively involved in farming, strove to improve it, and mourned seeing its decline and gradual displacement by industry.
In the last two decades of his life, Haggard became rapidly involved in the political life of the country. He stood for parliament in the 1895 elections (but lost), and was a member and consultant of an endless number of various government committees and commissions on colonial affairs and agriculture. Haggard's merits were appreciated by the authorities: as a reward for his work for the benefit of the British Empire, he was elevated to knighthood (1912), and in 1919 he received the Order of the British Empire.
Beatrix Potter (1866-1943).
Who doesn’t know today the fairy tale about the forest washerwoman Ukhti-Tukhti, who helped all the animals keep their clothes clean? Its author, Beatrix Potter, is one of the most popular English writers. Her fundamentally didactic fairy tales turned almost into adventure stories, so the action was “twisted”, so funny episodes quickly succeeded each other
In English art there is a concept - “one man’s book”. The tradition of creating original books, the illustrations for which were made by the authors themselves, was very strong in England. Since the time of the great William Blake, English poets have reserved the right to provide books with their own drawings and engravings. The poet became an artist; and the artist is a writer.
Potter was both a writer and an artist. She was born on July 28, 1866 in Bolton Gardens into a wealthy family. Beatrice's parents hired governesses and home teachers for Beatrice; she did not go to school and had no friends. And her loneliness was brightened up by pets, which she was allowed to keep in the classroom. For hours Beatrice looked after them, talked, shared children's secrets, and drew them. The Potter family spent their summers alternately in Scotland, then in Wales and in the famous Lake District, where they could communicate with animals in the wild. Young Beatrice's first childhood impressions were poetic. Potter's biographers rightly believe that these cats and rabbits are prototypes of characters in future children's books.
Arranging games for kids in a meadow near his house, staging own fairy tales, Potter showed extraordinary teaching (and acting!) abilities. She had a rare pedagogical gift. The forest lawn also became a corner for children in her books. fairy world, inhabited by funny hares, kind hedgehogs, cheerful frogs. They were dressed in charming costumes, they had completely human headdresses, canes and even muffs. Comic comparisons of human manners and the habits of animals have always brought joy to readers.
Beatrice carried her first “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” with her own drawings for a long time to publishing houses, everywhere meeting with refusal, and finally published it in 1901 at her own expense. The book was an unexpected success, was republished, and until 1910, the young artist-writer regularly composed, illustrated and published an average of two books a year, which immediately became the “bestsellers” of the time. Everyone liked her funny animals - bunnies, mice, hedgehogs, goslings and other small animals that funny copied people, but retained their animal habits.
In 1903-1904, Potter's books The Tailor of Gloucester, Bunny Rabbit, and The Tale of Two Bad Little Mice appeared, which established the author's reputation as an artist with her own unique style. The future artist's father was a photographer, and young Beatrice was also interested in photographing plants. It was during one of these walks that the idea for the first fairy tale was born. Hence probably the photographic, almost “documentary” accuracy in the depiction of nature. The artist takes from photography the subtle gradation of tones and soft light-and-shadow transitions.
The irresistible charm of the Potter characters lies in the humanization of animals. Jemima the duck in a headscarf, Ukhti-Tukhti in an apron, baby rabbits in children's suits - all these are examples of comical combinations of nature and civilization.
The special charm of Potter's heroes, their touching weakness, defenselessness against the forces of nature captivates readers.
Beatrix Potter's drawings live not only on book pages. Children's dishes in the Potter style have become widely known. Let's add here decorative appliqué and embroidery on children's aprons. We can speak with complete confidence about the existence of a special Potter world.
In 1905, after the death of her husband, the publisher of her books, Beatrice bought Hill Top Farm in the Lake District and tried to live there as long as possible. Her drawings depict the landscapes surrounding the farm.
In 1913, Beatrice married again and devoted herself entirely to agricultural concerns: the farm, sheep breeding, so there was no time left for creativity. But she has an important life goal: to preserve the beautiful Lake District in its original form. For this purpose, Potter, sparing no expense, bought areas around the farm, mountain and lake areas. When she died in 1943, Beatrice bequeathed 4,000 acres of land and 15 farms to the state with the condition that they be turned into a nature reserve. It still exists today.
Alan Milne (1882-1956).
Alan Alexander Milne- prose writer, poet and playwright, classic of twentieth-century literature, author of the famous "Winnie the Pooh" was born on January 18, 1882.
English writer, Scottish by birth, Alan Alexander Milne spent his childhood in London. He studied at a small private school, owned by his father, John Milne. One of his teachers in 1889-1890 was H.G. Wells. Then he entered Westminster School, and then Trinity College, Cambridge, where from 1900 to 1903 he studied mathematics. As a student, he wrote notes for the student newspaper Grant. He usually wrote with his brother Kenneth, and they signed the notes with the name AKM. Milne's work was noticed, and the British humor magazine Punch began to collaborate with him; Milne subsequently became an assistant editor there.
In 1913 Milne married Dorothy Daphne de Selincourt, goddaughter of magazine editor Owen Seaman (said to be Eeyore's psychological prototype), and his only son Christopher Robin was born in 1920. By that time, Milne had managed to visit the war and write several funny plays, one of which, “Mr. Pym Passed By” (1920), was a success.
When his son was three years old, Milne began to write poems about him and for him, devoid of sentimentality and accurately reproducing children's egocentrism, fantasies and stubbornness. The enormous success of the book of poems, illustrated by Ernest Shepard, prompted Milne to write the fairy tales Prince Rabbit (1924), The Princess Who Couldn't Laugh and The Green Door (both 1925), and in 1926 Winnie the Pooh was written. All the characters in the book (Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger, Kanga and Roo) except Rabbit and Owl were found in the nursery (now the toys that served as prototypes are kept in the Teddy Bear Museum in the UK), and the topography of the Forest resembles the area around Cotchford, where the family Milna spent the weekend.
In 1926, the first version of Little Bear with Sawdust in his Head (in English - Bear-with-very-small-brains) - "Winnie the Pooh" - appeared. The second part of the stories, "Now We Are Six," appeared in 1927, and the final part of the book, "The House on Pooh Edge," appeared in 1928. Milne never read his own Winnie the Pooh stories to his son, Christopher Robin, preferring to raise him on the works of the writer Wodehouse, beloved by Alan himself, and Christopher first read poems and stories about Pooh Bear only 60 years after their first appearance.
Before the publication of books about Winnie the Pooh Milne was already a fairly famous playwright, but the success of Winnie the Pooh has acquired such proportions that Milne's other works are now practically unknown. Worldwide sales of Pooh Bear books translated into 25 languages, 1924 to 1956. exceeded 7 million, and by 1996 about 20 million copies were sold, and only by the publishing house Muffin (this figure does not include publishing houses in the USA, Canada and other English speaking countries). A 1996 poll conducted by English radio showed that the book about Winnie the Pooh was ranked 17th on the list of the most striking and significant works published in the twentieth century. That same year, Milne's beloved teddy bear was sold at Bonham's London auction to an unknown buyer for £4,600. In 1952, Milne became seriously ill and spent the next four years, until his death, at his estate in Cotchford, Sussex.
In 1966 Walt Disney released the first animated film based on Milne's book "Winnie the Pooh".
In 1969-1972 in the USSR, the Soyuzmultfilm film studio released three cartoons directed by Fyodor Khitruk, “Winnie the Pooh”, “Winnie the Pooh Comes to Visit” and “Winnie the Pooh and the Day of Worries”, which won the love of the children's audience of the Soviet Union. Modern children watch these cartoons with pleasure.
John Tolkien (1892-1973).
The future writer was born on January 3, 1892 in the city of Bloemfotain (South Africa). The son of an English merchant who settled in South Africa, Tolkien returned to England at a conscious age, after the death of his father. Soon he lost his mother too. Before her death, she converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism, so a Catholic priest became John’s educator and guardian. Religion had a significant influence on the writer’s work.
In 1916, after graduating from Oxford University, Tolkien married Edith Brett, whom he loved from the age of 14 and with whom he did not part until her death in 1972. Edith became the prototype for one of Tolkien’s favorite images - the elven beauty Luthien.
Since 1914, the writer was busy implementing an ambitious plan - creating a “mythology for England” that would combine his favorite ancient tales about heroes and elves and Christian values. The result of these works was the “Book of Forgotten Tales” and the mythological corpus “The Silmarillion” that grew from it towards the end of the writer’s life.
In 1937, the magical story “The Hobbit, or There and Back Again” was published. In it, for the first time in the fictional world (Middle-earth), funny creatures appear, reminiscent of the inhabitants of rural “good old England”.
The hero of the tale, the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, becomes a kind of intermediary between the reader and the gloomy, majestic world of ancient legends. Persistent requests from publishers prompted Tolkien to continue the story. This is how the fairy-tale-epic trilogy “The Lord of the Rings” appeared (the novels “The Fellowship of the Ring”, “The Two Towers”, both 1954, and “The Return of the King”, 1955, revised edition 1966). In fact, it was a continuation of not only and not so much “The Hobbit,” but also “The Silmarillion,” which was not published during the writer’s lifetime, as well as the unfinished novel about Atlantis, “The Lost Road.”
The main idea of The Lord of the Rings is the need for a consistent and constant fight against evil. It cannot be overcome without following Christian moral values. At the same time, only “chance” - the Providence of God - will help you win the victory. However, the writer does not at all impose his religious beliefs on the reader. The action in the novels takes place in a mythical pre-Christian world, and God is not mentioned even once in the entire trilogy (unlike The Silmarillion).
Tolkien devoted the remaining years of his life to finalizing The Silmarillion, which, however, never saw the light of day during the author’s lifetime (1974). Embodying ancient legends through means modern literature, Tolkien became one of the creators of the new literary genre— fantasy.
Clive Lewis (1898-1963).
Some people only found out who Clive Lewis was when Narnia was released. And for some, Clive Staples has been an idol since childhood, when they read the Narnian Chronicles or the stories of Screwtape. In any case, the writer Staples Lewis opened up for many magical land. And going to Narnia with his books, almost no one thought about the fact that Clive Staples Lewis actually wrote about God and religion. Clive Staples Lewis indeed has a religious theme in almost all his works, but it is unobtrusive and wrapped in a beautiful fairy tale, on which more than one generation of children has grown up.
Clive Staples was born on November 29, 1898 in Ireland. When he was little, his life could truly be called happy and carefree. He had a great brother and mom. His mother taught little Clive various languages, not even forgetting Latin, and, moreover, raised him so that he would grow up to be a real person, with normal views and understanding of life. But then grief happened and his mother died when Lewis was not even ten years old. For the boy this was a terrible blow.
After that, his father, who was never distinguished by his tenderness and cheerful character, sent the boy to a closed school. This was another blow for him. He hated school and education until he came to Professor Kirkpatrick. It is worth noting that this professor was an atheist, while Lewis was always religious. And yet, Clive simply adored his teacher. He treated him like an idol, a standard. The professor also loved his student and tried to pass on all his knowledge to him. Besides, the professor was really very smart person. He taught the guy dialectics and other sciences, passing on to him all his knowledge and skills.
In 1917, Lewis was able to enter Oxford, but then he went to the front and fought in French territory. During the hostilities, the writer was wounded and hospitalized. There I discovered Chesterton, whom I began to admire, but at that time I could not understand and love his views and concepts. After the war and the hospital, Lewis returned back to Oxford, where he remained until 1954. Clive was very much loved by the students. The fact is that he lectured on English literature so interestingly that many came to him again and again in order to attend his classes again and again. At the same time, Clive wrote various articles, and then took up books. First great job became a book published in 1936. It was called "Allegory of Love".
What can be said about Lewis as a believer? In fact, the story of his faith is not so simple. Perhaps this is why he never tried to force his faith on anyone.
Rather, he wanted to present it so that whoever wanted to see it could see it. As a child, Clive was a kind, gentle and religious person, but after the death of his mother, his faith was shaken. Then he met a professor who, although an atheist, was much more intelligent and kind person than many believers. And then came the university years. And, as Lewis himself said, it was non-believers, atheists just like him, who made him believe again. At Oxford, Clive made friends who were as smart, well-read and interesting as himself. In addition, these guys reminded him of the concepts of conscience and humanity, because, having arrived at Oxford, the writer had practically forgotten about these concepts, remembering only that one should not be too cruel and steal. But new friends were able to change his views, and he regained his faith and remembered who he was and what he wanted from life.
Clive Lewis wrote many interesting treatises, stories, sermons, fairy tales, and novellas. These are “Letters of Screwtape”, and “The Chronicles of Narnia”, and the space trilogy, as well as the novel “Until We Found Faces”, which Clive wrote at a time when his beloved wife was very seriously ill. Lewis created his stories without trying to teach people how to believe in God. He was just trying to show where there is good and where there is evil, that everything is punishable, and even after a very long winter, summer comes, as it did in the second book of The Chronicles of Narnia.
Lewis wrote about God, about his companions, telling people about beautiful worlds. In fact, as a child, it is difficult to distinguish between symbolism and metaphor. But it is very interesting to read about the world that the golden-maned lion Aslan created, where you can fight and rule as a child, where animals talk, and various mythical creatures live in the forests. By the way, some church ministers had an extremely negative attitude towards Lewis. The point was that he mixed paganism and religion. In his books, naiads and dryads were, in fact, the same children of God as animals and birds. Therefore, the church considered his books unacceptable when viewed from the perspective of faith. But only some church ministers thought so. Many people have a positive attitude towards Lewis’s books and give them to their children, because, in fact, despite the mythology and religious symbolism, first of all, Lewis always promoted goodness and justice. But his goodness is not perfect. He knows that there is evil, which will always be evil. And, therefore, this evil must be destroyed. But this should not be done out of hatred and revenge, but only for the sake of justice.
Clive Staples did not live a very long, although not very short, life. He wrote many works of which he can be proud. In 1955, the writer moved to Cambridge. There he became the head of the department. In 1962, Lewis was accepted into the British Academy. But then his health deteriorates sharply, he resigns. And on November 22, 1963, Clive Staples died.
Enid Blyton (1897-1968).
Enid Mary Blyton is a famous British writer, creator of wonderful adventure works of children's and youth literature. She became one of the most successful teenage writers of the twentieth century.
Blyton was born on August 11, 1897 in London, Lordship Lane (West Dulwich), house 354. She was eldest daughter Thomas Carey Blyton (1870–1920), cutlery merchant, and his wife Theresa Mary, née Harrison (1874–1950). There were two younger sons, Hanley (born 1899) and Carey (born 1902), who were born after the family moved to the nearby suburb of Beckenham. From 1907 to 1915, Blyton attended St. Christopher's School in Beckenham, where she excelled academically. She enjoyed both academic work and physical activity equally, although she did not like mathematics.
She was noted for several series of books intended for various age groups, with recurring main characters. These books were a huge success in many parts of the world, selling over 400 million copies. By one estimate, Blyton is the fifth most popular author worldwide: according to the Translatability Index; By 2007, UNESCO had made more than 3,400 translations of her books; in this respect she is inferior to Lenin, but superior to Shakespeare.
One of the most famous characters The writer is Noddy, appearing in stories for young children just learning to read. However, its main strength was its novels, in which children found themselves on exciting adventures and unraveled intriguing mysteries with little or no adult help. The series are especially popular in this genre: “The Magnificent Five” (consists of 21 novels, 1942-1963; the main characters are four teenagers and a dog), “Five young detectives and the faithful dog" (or "Five Mysteries and a Dog", according to other translations; consists of 15 novels, 1943-1961, in which five children bypass the local police in investigating complicated incidents), as well as "The Secret Seven" (15 novels, 1949-1963, seven children solve various mysteries).
Enid Blyton's books contain children's adventure stories as well as fantasy elements, sometimes involving magic. Her books were and still remain extremely popular in Great Britain and in many other countries of the world, including Russia. The writer's works have been translated into more than 90 languages, including Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Malay, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian, Spanish and Turkish.
Pamela Travers (1899-1996).
Travers Pamela Liliana - famous English writer, poet and publicist, author of a series of children's books about Mary Poppins; Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Born August 9, 1899 in Maryborough, Australia, Queensland. Travers's parents were bank manager Robert Goff and Margaret Agnes, before marriage Morehead. Her father died when she was seven years old.
She began writing since childhood - she wrote stories and plays for school plays, and entertained her brothers and sisters with magical stories. Her poems were published when she was not even twenty years old - she wrote for the Australian magazine "Bulletin".
In her youth she traveled around Australia and New Zealand, then went to England in 1923. At first I tried myself on stage (Pamela is stage name), playing exclusively in Shakespeare's plays, but then her passion for literature won, and she devoted herself entirely to literature, publishing her works under the pseudonym “P. L. Travers" (the first two initials were used to hide the woman's name - a common practice among English-language writers).
In 1925, in Ireland, Travers met the mystical poet George William Russell, who had a great influence on her - both as a person and as a writer. He was then editor of the magazine and accepted several of her poems for publication. Through Russell, Travers met William Butler Yeats and other Irish poets, who instilled in her an interest and knowledge of world mythology. Yeats was not only an outstanding poet, but also a renowned occultist. This direction becomes decisive for Pamela Travers until the last days of her life.
The 1934 publication of Mary Poppins was Travers's first literary success. The writer admitted that she did not remember how the idea for this fairy tale came about. In response to persistent questions from journalists, she usually quoted the words of Clive Lewis, who believed that there is “only one Creator” in the world, and the task of the writer is only to “assemble already existing elements into a single whole,” and by remaking reality, they change themselves.
Disney's Mary Poppins was released in 1964 ( main role- Mary Poppins - played by actress Julie Andrews). The film was nominated for an Oscar in 13 nominations and won five awards. In the Soviet Union, the film “Mary Poppins, Goodbye!” was released in 1983.
In her life, the writer was distinguished by the fact that she tried not to advertise the facts of her personal life, including her Australian origin. “If you are interested in the facts of my biography,” Travers once said, “the story of my life is contained in Mary Poppins and my other books.”
Although she never married, shortly before her 40th birthday, Travers adopted an Irish boy named Camillus, separating him from his twin brother, as she refused to take two children (the boys were not reunited until several years later).
In 1977, Travers was awarded the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire. Her talent as a writer was recognized everywhere, and as further confirmation - a simple fact: in 1965-71 she lectured on writing at colleges in the UK and the USA. Her house was filled with books, books were everywhere, on countless shelves along the walls, on tables, on the floor. The author once joked: “If I were to lose a roof over my head, I could build myself a house out of books.” In general, she was an active and active woman, traveled a lot, and even in old age, from 1976 until her death in 1996, she worked as an editor mythological magazine"Parabola". Her later works include travel sketches and the essay collections What a Bee Knows: Reflections on Myth, Symbol, and Plot.
Pamela Travers died in 1996, but the writer believed in the infinity of life: “Where the core is strong, there is no beginning or end, there is no word goodbye...”. This is probably correct: storytellers do not die...
Mary Norton (1903-1992).
Mary Pearson was born on December 10 in London, the only girl among five children. Soon the family moved to Bedfordshire, to the same house that was described in “The Miners.” After graduating from school and briefly working as a secretary, she became an actress.
After two years of theatrical life in 1927, Mary Pearson married Edward Norton and left with her husband for Portugal. There she had two sons and two daughters, and it was there that she began to write.
After the outbreak of war, Mary's husband joined the navy, and she returned to England with her children in 1943. In 1943, her first children's book was published: “The Magic Knob, or How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons,” then the next one, “The Bonfire and the Broom.” A few years later, both tales were reworked and combined into one, "The Knob and the Broom", the film rights to which were sold to Disney for a very small sum.
Norton's most famous fairy tale, “The Miners,” was published in 1952 and received the Carnegie Medal, the main award for English children's writers. “Mining Workers” has been filmed many times.
Films and television productions based on Mary Norton's books are attracting new generations of readers.
Mary Norton died in Devon, England in 1992.
Donald Bisset (1910-1995).
Donald Bisset is an English children's writer, artist, film actor and theater director. Born 30 August 1910 in Brentford, Middlesex, England.
Studied at clerks' school. During World War II he served as an artillery lieutenant.
Bisset began writing fairy tales commissioned by London television. Soon he began to read them in children's programs. And since he was a professional actor, he read his fairy tales simply excellent. He accompanied his reading by showing funny and expressive drawings. The broadcast lasted about eight minutes, and accordingly the volume of the tale did not exceed two or three pages.
In 1954, he published the first book of his short fairy tales, published in the “Read It Yourself” series. The book was called “I’ll Tell You When You Want.” It was followed by “I’ll tell you another time,” “I’ll tell you someday.” This series was followed by collections united by the same characters - “Yak”, “Conversations with a Tiger”, “The Adventures of Miranda the Duck”, “A Horse Named Smokey”, “The Journey of Uncle Tick-Tock”, “A Trip to the Jungle” . All books were illustrated with drawings by Bisset himself.
As an actor, Bisset played roles in 57 films and television series, which, unfortunately, remained unknown outside of England. Bisset played his first role in the film Carousel in 1949. He also distinguished himself as an inventive theater director. He himself staged his fairy tales on the stage of the Royal Shakespeare Theater in Stratford-upon-Avon and even played a dozen small roles in them. Last time In films, he played the role of Mr. Grimm in the English television series “The Bill” in 1991. On television he directed and hosted a program for children, “The Adventures of Yak” (1971-1975).
Bisset wrote about himself like this: : “...Scotsman. I live in London... Gray hair, blue eyes, height 5.9 feet. I have been working in the theater since 1933. He began telling fairy tales for children in 1953 on television. ...By philosophy I am a materialist. By temperament - an optimist. My greatest wish is to publish one of my children's books with my own color illustrations... My favorite children's books: “The Wind in the Willows”, “Winnie the Pooh”, “Alice in Wonderland”. As well as folk tales about giants and witches. I don’t really like the fairy tales of Hans Andersen and the Brothers Grimm.”
When Donald Bisset was asked why he became a writer, he replied: “Because the grass is green and the trees are growing. Because I hear the thunder roaring and the rain pounding. Because I love children and animals. I take my hat off to ladybug. I like to pet cats and ride horses... And also write fairy tales, play in the theater, draw... When you love both, then you are rich. He who loves nothing cannot be happy.”
He invented and settled in Africa an animal that is never bored: one half of it consists of the Most Charming Cat, and the other half of the Resourceful Crocodile. The name of the beast is Crococat. Donald Bisset's favorite friend is the tiger cub Rrrrr, with whom Donald Bisset loves to travel along the river of time until the end of the Rainbow, and is so able to move his brains that his thoughts rustle. The main enemies of Donald Bisset and Tiger Cub Rrrrr are Harmful with the names You Can’t, Don’t Dare and Shame.
Bisset visited Moscow twice, spoke on television, and visited a kindergarten, where he even composed the fairy tale “I do what I want” with the children.
Despite the fact that Bisset has more than one and a half hundred fairy tales, in the English-speaking world he is practically consigned to oblivion. Bisset is still being republished in Russia, and his tales are widely known. In the eighties, a series of seven cartoons was filmed in the USSR under the general title “Tales of Donald Bisset” - “The Girl and the Dragon”, “Forgotten Birthday”, “Crococat”, “Raspberry Jam”, “Snowfall from the Refrigerator”, “Music Lesson” ", "Vrednyuga".
Gerald Durrell (1925-1995) - English naturalist, writer, founder of Jersey Zoo and Conservation Trust wildlife which now bear his name.
He was the fourth and youngest child of British civil engineer Lawrence Samuel Durrell and his wife Louise Florence Durrell (née Dixie). According to relatives, at the age of two, Gerald fell ill with “zoomania,” and his mother recalled that one of his first words was “zoo” (zoo).
In 1928, after the death of their father, the family moved to England, and seven years later, on the advice of Gerald’s older brother, Lawrence, to the Greek island of Corfu.
There were few real educators among Gerald Durrell's first home teachers. The only exception was the naturalist Theodore Stephanides (1896–1983). It was from him that Gerald received his first systematic knowledge of zoology. Stephanides appears more than once on the pages of Gerald Durrell's most famous book, the novel My Family and Other Animals. The books “Birds, Beasts and Relatives” (1969) and “The Amateur Naturalist” (1982) are dedicated to him.
In 1939 (after the outbreak of World War II), Gerald and his family returned to England and got a job in the London Aquarium store.
But the real start of Darrell's research career was his work at Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire. Gerald got a job here immediately after the war as a “student caretaker,” or “animal boy,” as he called himself. It was here that he received his first professional training and began collecting a “dossier” containing information about rare and endangered species of animals (and this was 20 years before the appearance of the International Red Book).
After the end of the war, 20-year-old Darrell decides to return to his historical homeland - Jamshedpur.
In 1947, Gerald Durrell, having reached adulthood (21 years old), received part of his father's inheritance. With this money, he organized three expeditions - two to British Cameroon (1947-1949) and one to British Guiana (1950). These expeditions do not bring profit, and in the early 50s Gerald finds himself without a livelihood and work.
Not a single zoo in Australia, the USA or Canada could offer him a position. At this time, Lawrence Durrell, Gerald's older brother, advises him to take up his pen, especially since “the English love books about animals.”
Gerald's first story, “The Hunt for the Hairy Frog,” was an unexpected success; the author was even invited to personally read this work on the radio. His first book, The Overloaded Ark (1953), was about a trip to Cameroon and received rave reviews from readers and critics alike.
The author was noticed by major publishers, and the royalties for “The Overloaded Ark” and Gerald Durrell’s second book, “Three Tickets to Adventure” (1954), allowed him to organize an expedition to South America. However, at that time there was a military coup in Paraguay, and almost the entire collection of animals had to be left there. Darrell described his impressions of this trip in his next book, “Under the Canopy of the Drunken Forest” (1955). At the same time, at the invitation of his brother, Lawrence, Gerald vacationed in Corfu.
Familiar places evoked a lot of childhood memories - this is how the famous “Greek” trilogy appeared: “My Family and Other Animals” (1956), “Birds, Animals and Relatives” (1969) and “The Garden of the Gods” (1978). The first book of the trilogy was a wild success. My Family and Other Animals was reprinted 30 times in the UK alone, and 20 times in the US.
In total, Gerald Durrell wrote about 40 books (almost all of them were translated into dozens of languages) and made 35 films. The debut four-part television film “To Bafut with the Hounds,” released in 1958, was very popular in England.
Thirty years later, Darrell managed to film in the Soviet Union, with active participation and assistance from the Soviet side. The result was the thirteen-episode film “Darrell in Russia” (also shown on Channel 1 of USSR television in 1986-1988) and the book “Darrell in Russia” (not officially translated into Russian).
In the USSR, Darrell's books were published repeatedly and in large editions. These books are still being republished.
In 1959, Darrell created a zoo on the island of Jersey, and in 1963, the Jersey Wildlife Conservation Fund was organized on the basis of the zoo.
Darrell's main idea was to breed rare and endangered species of animals in a zoo with the aim of further resettling them in their natural habitats. This idea has now become a generally accepted scientific concept. If it were not for the Jersey Foundation, many species of animals would only be preserved as stuffed animals in museums. Thanks to the Foundation, the pink dove, Mauritian kestrel, monkeys: golden lion marmoset and marmoset, Australian corroboree frog, radiated tortoise from Madagascar and many other species were saved from complete extinction.
Alan Garner (b. 1934) is a British fantasy writer whose work is based on Old English legends. Writers was born on October 17, 1934.
Alan Garner spent his early childhood in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, England. His ancestors lived there for more than three hundred years. This influenced his work. Most of the works, including “The Magic Stone of Brisingamen,” are written based on the legends of those places.
The writer's childhood occurred during the Second World War, during which the boy suffered three serious illnesses (diphtheria, meningitis, pneumonia), lying almost motionless on his bed and allowing his imagination to travel beyond the white ceiling and the window taped in case of bombing. Alan was an only child, and although his entire family survived the war, the forced years of loneliness did not pass without leaving a mark on the formation of the writer’s personality and worldview.
At the insistence of the village teacher, Garner was sent to Manchester Grammar School, and later the library at this school was named after him. After graduating from college, Garner entered Oxford University, studying Celtic mythology. Without completing his studies, he enlisted in the Royal Artillery, where he served for two years.
The most famous are his books “The Magic Stone of Brisingamen” (1960), as well as the sequel, “The Moon on the Eve of Gomrath” (1963), and the story “Elidor” (1965). After their publication, Garner was talked about as a “very special” children's writer in England. However, the definition of “children’s” is not entirely correct. Garner himself claims that he does not write specifically for children; Although the heroes of his books are always children, he addresses readers of different ages.
Now the writer lives in his native Alderley Edge in eastern Cheshire in an old house that has been there since the 16th century. The almost realistic “Stone Book” (1976–1978), composed “of four short stories, four prose poems” about generations of the Garner family, is dedicated to the history of this region.
Jacqueline Wilson (born 1945).
Jacqueline Atkin was born on December 17, 1945, in the center of Somerset, the city of Bath. Her father was a government official and her mother an antique dealer. Wilson spent most of her childhood in Kingston upon Thames, where she attended primary school Lachmer. At the age of nine, the girl wrote her first story, 22 pages long. At school, she was remembered as a dreamy child who was at odds with the exact sciences, and was even given the nickname “Dream Jackie,” which Jacqueline later used in her autobiography.
After leaving school at age 16, Wilson took a secretarial course, but soon changed jobs, landing a job at the girls' magazine Jackie. Because of this, she had to move to Scotland, but it was there that she met and fell in love with her future husband, William Millar Wilson. They got married in 1965, and two years later they had a daughter, Emma, who later also became a writer.
In 1991, the book that brought her fame, “The Diary of Tracy Beaker,” was published, although Jacqueline has written about 40 books for children since the 60s. The diary formed the basis of the popular British television series on the BBC channel, “The Tracy Beaker Story,” which ran successfully from 2002 to 2006.
In 2011, an exhibition dedicated to the life and creative path of the English writer opened at the national children's book center "Seven Stories" in Newcastle.
JK Rowling (born 1965).
JK Kathleen Rowling was born on July 31, 1965 in the English city of Bristol. A few years later, the family moved to Winterburn, where the Potters lived next door to the Rowlings, and Joan played with their children in the yard.
When Rowling was 9 years old, the family moved to the small town of Tatshill near a large forest. Rowling's parents were Londoners and always dreamed of living in nature.
After school, in which Joan's favorite subject was English and her least favorite subject was physical education, Rowling entered the University of Exeter and received a degree in French.
After university, Rowling worked at the Amnesty International office in London as a secretary. She says the best thing about the job was that she could use the company computer to type out her stories when no one was looking. It was while working for Amnesty International, while traveling by train from Manchester to London in the summer of 1990, that Rowling came up with the idea for a book about a boy who is a wizard but doesn't know it. By the time the train arrived at Charing Cross Station in London, many of the chapters of the first book had already been invented.
In 1992, Rowling went to Portugal to work as an English teacher. She returned back with her little daughter and a suitcase full of notes about Harry Potter. Rowling settled in Edinburgh and devoted herself entirely to writing the book. When the book was completed, Rowling, after several unsuccessful attempts to interest publishers, entrusted the task of selling the book to literary agent Christopher Lytle. And I got a job teaching French.
In 1997, an agent told her that Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published by Bloomsbury. The book became a success almost immediately. It sold out superbly and won several literary prizes. The rights to publish it in America were purchased for $105,000, 101 thousand more than the English ones.
It was from this moment that JK Rowling's rapid ascent up the ladder of fame began. Books and films about Harry Potter brought Joan a huge fortune; today it is estimated at one billion one hundred million dollars. The writer herself is a Knight of the Legion of Honor, as well as a recipient of the Hugo Award and many other equally significant awards.
Rowling is now actively involved in charitable activities, supporting the Single Parents Foundation and the Multiple Sclerosis Research Foundation, from which her mother died.
Thomas More (1478 - 1535), from whom famous English writers actually originate, despite his “serious” origins from the family of a famous judge in London, had exceptional cheerfulness from childhood. For 13 years he found himself in the service of the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Morton.
However, not only his wit, but also his thirst for knowledge contributed to the fact that his stern mentor predicted the fate of an “amazing man” for him.
Beginning in 1510, the young lawyer became interested VIII, and this meant the beginning of a political career for Thomas. 11 years later he was so successful at it that he was knighted, with the prefix “sir” added to his name. And for the manifesto “In Defense of the Seven Sacraments,” he was awarded the title Defender of the Faith of England by Pope Leo X.
Researchers still do not know whether to classify his “History of Richard III” as historical or work of art. It is similar to the chronicles of those years, however, it also indicates the point of view of the author, who gives an assessment of the events of 1483; this version was very popular in the works of writers of the 19th century.
Thomas More had other talents - poet and translator. He is credited, in particular, with the authorship of 280 Latin epigrams, translations from Greek language and poems.
More's most significant creation is Utopia, which remains relevant in England today. Her ideas were used by Russian writers of the 19th century. In the genre of the novel, he laid down a powerful message of socialist thought.
It can be considered a kind of manifesto for utopian socialism of the 19th century. A master of epigrams, he himself spoke of his work as useful and funny. The ideas of abolishing private property and exploitation of labor are also used by modern writers.
Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745) is known to the general public only as the author of the famous "Gulliver's Travels". However, this talented satirist of England proved himself to be a courageous publicist, philosopher, poet and public figure, who most of all advocated for solving the problems of his native Irish. Famous writers of the 19th century consider him their confessor.
Swift came from a poor family. His father, his full namesake, died in the rank of a minor judicial official when his wife was pregnant with the future classic of English literature. Therefore, his uncle Godwin took upon himself all the work of raising the baby, and Jonathan practically did not know his own mother.
He studied at Trinity College (Dublin University) with a bachelor's degree, but this study left him with a lifelong skepticism towards science. He was much better at languages - Latin and Greek, as well as French, plus he had excellent makings of a writer who influenced the literature of England in the 19th century.
Even before receiving his master's degree at Oxford (1692), he made his debut in the literary field as a poet.
Two years later, Jonathan became a confessor and was sent to Ireland. The religious fervor of the future critic of morals did not last long, and already in 1696-1699 he returned to English literature with satirical stories, parables and poems, which were developed in Russian literature of the 19th century.
Nevertheless, having lost his patrons in London, he was forced to return to the bosom of the church, without ceasing to create in the field of satire. In 1702, he became a doctor of divinity at the same Trinity College from which he had previously graduated.
One of the two parables he had previously written, “The Tale of the Barrel,” brought him popularity in England. In 1713, he took the position of dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, thus entering big politics. The main theme of his aspirations was the struggle for Irish autonomy, which English writers actively glorified in their works of the 19th century.
It is interesting that the first two volumes of Gulliver were published anonymously in England (1726). The remaining two, however, were not long in coming (1727) and, despite some successes of censorship, which slightly spoiled the book, Travels instantly became incredibly popular. Suffice it to say that within a few months the book was reprinted three times, and then its translations began, which continued into the 19th and 20th centuries.
Samuel Richardson (1689 – 1761) can rightfully be called the founding father of the “sensitive” literature of England, which was continued by writers of the 19th century. With three novels - "Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded", "Clarissa, or the Story of a Young Lady" and "The Story of Sir Charles Grandison" - he formed the foundation of his worldwide fame.
He was not only a wonderful writer, but also a reputable printer and publisher in England. He survived the death of his wife and five sons, married again, and his second wife bore him four daughters. However, Samuel himself was from a large family, in which, in addition to himself, eight more children grew up.
Already in adolescence, Samuel gravitated towards writing. At the age of 13, girls he knew begged him to write answers for them to love letters sent to them. Thus, with simple research into girls’ hearts, he prepared the ground for his “three pillars”, on which their fruits grew in the 19th century.
As a 17-year-old boy, he became a printer, and for seven long years he worked as a laborer for the master, who disliked Richardson so much that he, the only one of his workers, did not give him any concessions. After leaving him, Samuel opened his own printing house, and then married for convenience the daughter of his former employer.
Richardson wrote his first novel at the age of 51, and this creation instantly became a bestseller, and its author a lifetime classic.
Each of Samuel's three novels tells the story of the life of a certain class of England, from the lowest to the highest. Their main advantage is a fundamental analysis of feelings and abundant moral teaching. The most successful critics unanimously call it “Clarissa, or the Story of a Young Lady,” the ideas of which came to court in the 19th century and are also used by modern authors.
Henry Fielding (1707 - 1754) is the founder of the realistic novel in England, the author of The History of Tom Jones, Foundling, and a prolific playwright. Coming from a general's family, a hereditary nobleman, he graduated from Eton, studied for two years in Leiden, but was forced to return to London and earn a living as a playwright.
His first opuses with a clearly satirical slant came under fire from official criticism, and after the release of The Golden Rump from his pen, the authorities adopted the Law on Theater Censorship, which was still relevant in the 19th century.
Fielding had to quit the theater, enter Templely and concentrate on his legal career in order to support his family. Along the way, he became interested in journalism, but was often poor, and only the patronage of the wealthy benefactor Ralph Allen (later the prototype of Olvetri in Tom Jones) helped his children, after Henry’s death, receive a decent education.
However, the attractiveness of satire did not allow him to leave dramaturgy forever, and the success of his “Thumb Boy” in England became a continuation of his career in this field. His first major success was “Shamela”, in this novel he takes the baton from Jonathan Swift and successfully criticizes the melodramatic genre, which was in great favor at that time and most fully developed in the 19th century.
However, neither in this nor in the subsequent Joseph Andrews did Fielding achieve the same level of mastery as in The History of the Life of the Late Jonathan Wild the Great. The theme of fraud begun in this novel continued in The Effeminate Spouse.
The crowning achievement of Fielding's work is undoubtedly his Tom Jones. Here the genre of the picaresque novel is almost completely formed in order to sail further on the waves of English literature, accessible to followers.
And the tilt towards sentimentalism that he made in “Emilia” only testifies to the multifaceted talent of this great English writer.
Walter Scott (1771 – 1832) was the first to use the today fashionable word “freelancer” (in “Ivanhoe”), and he was not a free artist, but a hired medieval warrior. In addition to writing and poetry, history and advocacy, the founder of the historical novel of the 19th century was not alien to collecting antiquities.
He was born the ninth child in a family of intellectuals, where his father was a wealthy lawyer, and his mother was the daughter of a medical professor. However, at the age of one, little Walter suffered from infantile paralysis, and therefore, despite repeated treatment, his right leg lost mobility forever.
The future novelist of the 19th century spent his childhood with his grandfather, a farmer, amazing those around him with his liveliness of mind and unique memory. His years of study were connected with his native Edinburgh; here the boy developed a craving for studying the ballads and tales of Scotland and the works of German poets.
At the age of 21 he became a certified lawyer., and then starts his own legal practice. At this time, he travels a lot around Britain, collecting his favorite English legends and ballads.
The writer meets his first love in the same lawyer family. However, the girl chose a banker over him, which forever broke his heart, pieces of which littered all his subsequent literary opuses.
Unfortunately, childhood illnesses made themselves felt in 1830 with apoplexy. Now his right arm is losing mobility. Over the next two years, he suffered two more such strokes, and died in 1832 from a heart attack.
Now his Abbotsford estate houses a museum containing all the relics associated with his life's achievements. They began with translations of the ballads of one of his favorite German poets, Burger - “Lenora” and “Wild Hunter”. The next one in his translation was Goethe's drama Goetz von Berlichingham.
It is clear, therefore, that Scott’s debut in 19th-century literature could only have been poetic work– ballad “Midsummer Evening” (1800). Already in 1802, he burst into a two-volume work, which included both Scott’s original ballads and his revised English legends.
And a year later literary world witnessed the birth of the first novel in verse, Marmion. In addition, he owns the throne of the founder historical poem, and his work in 1805-1817 popularized the lyric-epic poem.
So, having already become a famous poet, he graduated from Waverley in 1814 and began a career that brought him worldwide fame, which is the envy of writers all over the planet. Despite his poor health, Walter Scott was phenomenally productive. He published less than two novels a year.
This was the Honoré de Balzac of 19th century English literature! It is interesting that from the very beginning he sought his path in the genre of the historical novel of England. And, judging by the success of Rob Roy, Woodstock, Ivanhoe, Quentin Durward, The Antiquarian and his other novels that followed Waverley, he completely succeeded!