Victorian fiction : novels of faith and doubt

The challenging life of the current Catholic is not so very different from that of the early Christians-- persectution and opposition is just as imminent nowadays as it was two thousand years ago. Pious readers young and old are sure to find Cardinal Wiseman's famous novel an inspiration in facing the trials and hardships which confront those who hold true to Christ's Church. Well-beloved heroes such as Tarcisius, Pancratius, Anges, and Sebastian are brought to life in a remarkable and chamring manner. Christian doctrines are beautifully portrayed throughout the dialouge of the characters, and reader shall come to love the haughty pagan who finds the true Faith on accoutn of the prayers and sacrfices of her humble slave. The life of the early Christians is shown with remarkable detail, and the Catacombs are explored in depth. Truly this shall come one of the most treasured volumes in the possesion of its reader!

Marius is born in the second-century Roman Empire to a patrician family. In his youth he takes in the rituals, religion, and surroundings of his native land, and when his parents die, he’s sent away to a boarding school. As young Marius develops into manhood, he explores various schools of philosophy and ways of life, until he lands into the position of amanuensis to the emperor Marcus Aurelius—who of course is not just the head of the largest empire the world had yet seen, but also a respected thinker and philosopher of Stoicism. Marius dips into Stoicism himself, until a fledgling new religion catches his attention: Christianity. Marius’s search for meaning gives Pater a broad canvas on which to expound on some of the central theses he would return to often in his career: how childhood experiences are essential to the personality of the adult, and how a carefully-curated, aesthetic life—but not one of pure hedonic abandon—is one of the most satisfying ways to live. Indeed, Pater is careful to distinguish Epicureanism and its emphasis on modest sensory pleasures and limiting desire, from hedonism and the ruin a life of pure consumption can bring. Despite this focus on philosophical searching, Pater also puts the conflict Marius feels over religion at the story’s forefront. Like Pater himself, who yearned for the simpler atmosphere of religion he had experienced in youth, Marius finds himself bouncing from paganism, to philosophy, to the new religion of Christianity, in search of the comfort of the lost rituals of his youth. In the end, a satisfactory peace seems elusive. Marius the Epicurean remains an important milestone in 19th century investigations of religion and philosophy, while also being a rich example of a text brought alive with allusion and experiments in form. The story isn’t a straightforward narrative, but rather features frame narratives, epistolary fragments, orations, and dialogues. This structure looks forward to the modernism that would emerge in 20th century literature. Literary critic Harold Bloom called it “one of the more remarkable fictional experiments of the late nineteenth century.”

When the stories that became the Chronicles of Carlingford series first appeared anonymously, speculation had it that they were the work of George Eliot. The connection was a natural one. Only a few years earlier, Eliot’s Scenes of Clerical Life had appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine. The Carlingford stories, too, were originally published in Blackwood’s, and they had much to do with ecclesiastical affairs in the town. Eliot did not feel flattered by the attribution, although her own work and that of Margaret Oliphant continued to have fascinating connections. The two novellas joined in this ebook (as they were in their signed publication of 1863) introduce readers to the sleepy town of Carlingford with its intricate and layered social life. The Rector tells the story of an Oxford scholar in holy orders, embarking on parish ministry only in middle age. The demands of the role expose his personal inadequacies, and provoke his attempts to come to terms with them. The central character of The Doctor’s Family is Dr. Rider, an unexceptional young medical man. His dissolute older brother, Fred, has once before ruined his nascent career, and Fred’s arrival in Carlingford from Australia threatens to do so again—all the moreso when his family, until then unknown to Dr. Rider, shows up in town as well. Particularly Fred’s waif-like but efficient sister-in-law, really a “little autocrat,” claims Dr. Rider’s attention in unexpected ways. The hopes and conflicts of these ordinary men provide the details for the portraits which Oliphant paints on the canvas of Carlingford life. She took some inspiration for these chronicles from the Barsetshire novels of Anthony Trollope, which had by this time become great successes. While the debt is obvious, Oliphant’s vision—both socially and artistically—differs significantly from Trollope’s. Not only does Oliphant attend to aspects of society in which Trollope had little interest, but she also writes with a woman’s insight, and a flair arising out of her experience as the competent manager of her own troubled family.

150, 453 pages ; 19 cm