Victober is here!

 

VICTOBER IS HERE!

One of my favorite things about the bookstagram corner if Instagram is that it introduced me to the idea of reading Victorian literature in October. What a cozy delight! Now I look forward to this tradition all year. It is a fun way to remember to read more classic books and it kicks off the holiday season for me. 

The picture above is a messy pile of Victorian-era books, mostly novels and one small book of nonfiction – Thomas Carlyle’s Essay on Burns. That one is also the only one of this bunch I haven’t read yet. Can you spot the anomaly in the picture? Leave a comment with your answer.

Do you participate in Victober? You can join in whether you are on Instagram or not. (If you are, please find me @gilioncdumas so we can connect.) If you are a fellow bookstagrammer, there are official Victober hosts and prompts for book ideas. But you can take part on any platform, simply by reading a Victorian-era book in October. Even better if you use the #victober hashtag. 

NOTE: The "Victorian era" is the span of years that Queen Victoria ruled England. She came to the throne in 1837 and died in 1901. Victorian literature is considered to be books by British authors published during her reign. Arguably, authors from other countries wrote in what could be thought of as a "Victorian style" during those years. For example, American authors like Nathaniel Hawthorne published his first collection of short stories in 1937 and died in 1864. French author Alexandre Dumas published most of his books, including The Three Musketeers, during Victoria's reign. Both these authors wrote books similar in style to Charles Dickens or Robert Louis Stevenson, luminaries of the Victorian era. But officially, Victorian literature is limited to authors under Victoria's reign. 

MY VICTOBER BOOKS

This year will be the fifth year I've participated in Victober. My main book will be The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Ann Bronte. I already finished a short novella to kick off the Victober season. Here's my Victober list:

2023

Liza of Lambeth by W. Somerset Maugham (1897)

2022

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (1855)


2021

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot (1860)

2020

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell (1853)
The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens (1841)

2019

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy (1878)