Imaginary qualifying exam list, part II: Victorian religious fiction, 1837-1859
Part II of this draft of our imaginary list takes us through multiple big, interrelated, and protracted religious struggles: the fallout from Catholic Emancipation (1829); the emergence of the Oxford Movement and the spate of conversions to Roman Catholicism that followed in the mid-1840s; the controversy over the Maynooth Grant; the "Papal Aggression"; and Jewish Emancipation. Somewhat inconveniently, there are many more relevant works for our imaginary graduate student to read. There are, however, some recognizable authors other than Jane Austen.
Grace Aguilar, The Perez Family (1847) [one of the few attempts at Anglo-Jewish controversial fiction, by one of the nineteenth century's most popular Jewish authors; in print]
---, The Vale of Cedars; Or, the Martyr (1850) [posthumously-published historical novel about the persecution of Jews by the Inquisition]
Anne Bronte, Agnes Grey (1847) [trials of a would-be governess; in print]
---, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) [object lesson in why reforming nasty guys is a losing proposition; includes a detailed discussion of universalism; in print]
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (1847) [yes, really, it's a Christian novel; in print]
---, Villette (1853) [lots of controversy about how we're to take its anti-Catholic themes; in print]
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights (1847) [some pretty "heretical," in Simon Marsden's turn of phrase, things going on here; in print]
George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life (1857) [Eliot's historical novellas ponder various religious and social tensions; in print]
Frederic William Farrar, Eric; Or, Little by Little: A Tale of Roslyn School (1858) ["public school tale" featuring spiritual degeneration, boyhood temptations, psychological and physical abuse, and deaths of various sorts, until the title character is finally reclaimed by dying himself]
James Anthony Froude, The Nemesis of Faith (1849) [notorious novel of "doubt" and its consequences]
Lady Georgiana Fullerton, Ellen Middleton (1844) [in a fit of rage, a girl pushes her cousin to her death, and is haunted by it until she finally finds release through confession; internationally-successful High Church novel, published prior to the author's conversion to Roman Catholicism]
Osborn W. Trenery Heighway, Leila Ada, the Jewish Convert: An Authentic Memoir (1852) [a very dubious conversion narrative by the even more dubious Heighway, who was successfully prosecuted for passing off a faked religious autobiography as the real thing; nevertheless, one of the most significant examples of the genre, and still has a vogue in messianic circles]
Charles Kingsley, Hypatia; Or, New Foes with An Old Face (1853) [uses the story of the philosopher Hypatia and her death to contemplate contemporary religious problems in the UK, especially the Oxford Movement and the growing prominence of English Catholicism]
John Mason Neale, Agnes de Tracy: A Tale of the Times of S. Thomas of Canterbury (1843) [High Church attempt to recuperate the archbishop murdered in his cathedral; an example of "Early Church" fiction]
John Henry Newman, Loss and Gain: The Story of a Convert (1848) [the best-known Catholic controversial novel, probably because it doesn't behave like other Catholic controversial novels--and, of course, it's by Newman...]
---, Callista: A Sketch of the Third Century (1856) [a young woman converts to Christianity and is ultimately martyred for it]
Francis Edward Paget, Milford Malvoisin: Or, Pews and Pewholders (1842) [High Church novel, set in the seventeenth century and the present day, about the spiritual dangers posed by pews and the concomitant need for church restoration]
G. E. Sargent, The Story of a Pocket-Bible (1859) [popular object narrative in which the story is told by, yup, the Bible]
Elizabeth Missing Sewell, Margaret Percival (1847) [young woman is almost entrapped by the allure of Catholicism before being convinced to remain Anglican]
William Sewell, Hawkstone: A Tale of and For England in 184- (1845) [former pal of the Tractarians proceeds to bludgeon them really hard; also, evil union agitators and an especially creepy death by rats; has some interesting parallels to Disraeli's Sybil]
Catherine Sinclair, Beatrice: Or, the Unknown Relatives (1852) [an example of how anti-Catholic novelists responded to the "Papal Aggression"; a mysterious survivor of a shipwreck, evil Catholics trying to take over, female Jesuits, etc.]
Frances [Mother Mary Magdalen] Taylor, Tyborne: 'And Who went thither in the Days of Queen Elizabeth' (1859) [also known as Father de Lisle; internationally successful Catholic historical novel, part of the wave of fiction written by influential converts; an attempt to counter the Protestant turn to the Book of Martyrs]
Anthony Trollope, The Warden (1855) [an Anglican clergyman finds himself entrapped in a increasingly-heated kerfuffle over money; in print]
Frances Trollope, Father Eustace: A Tale of the Jesuits (1847) [a good example of how anti-Catholic fiction proceeded to "heat up" as the century continued; the Church plots to take a young heiress' property, thanks to some romantic underhandedness]
Nicholas Wiseman, Fabiola; or, the Church in the Catacombs (1854) [Catholic novel celebrating the early martyrs; edited versions are still in print]
Charlotte Yonge, The Heir of Redclyffe (1853) [High Church bestseller, featuring the dangers of secrecy and skepticism against the virtues of Christian faith and honesty, plus illness, death, skulduggery, etc.]
---, The Daisy Chain (1856) [moral and spiritual struggles within a big family, plus some rather unusual notions about near-sightedness]