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By decade

Books of the 1850s

The great mid-century confidence: Moby-Dick, Bleak House, Madame Bovary, Turgenev. The novel became the form that could hold everything — society, psychology, philosophy. 34 titles in the catalogue from this decade.

Bleak House Charles Dickens · 1852 Essential Read Get it on Amazon →
Hard Times Charles Dickens · 1854 Essential Read Get it on Amazon →
North and South Elizabeth Gaskell · 1855 Essential Read Get it on Amazon →
A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens · 1859 Essential Read See details →
On the Origin of Species Charles Darwin · 1859 Essential Read See details →
The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne · 1850 Recommended See details →
Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe · 1850 Recommended See details →
Life of George Washington Washington Irving · 1850 Recommended See details →
Fairy Tales and Stories Hans Christian Andersen · 1850 Recommended See details →
Moby-Dick Herman Melville · 1851 Recommended See details →
The Stones of Venice John Ruskin · 1851 Recommended See details →
The Blithedale Romance Nathaniel Hawthorne · 1852 Recommended See details →
Twelve years a slave Solomon Northup · 1853 Recommended See details →
Cranford Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell · 1853 Recommended See details →
Tanglewood Tales Nathaniel Hawthorne · 1853 Recommended See details →
Walden Henry David Thoreau · 1854 Recommended See details →
Wolfert's roost and other papers Washington Irving · 1854 Recommended See details →
Hide and seek, or, The mystery of Mary Grice Wilkie Collins · 1854 Recommended See details →
Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman · 1855 Recommended See details →
The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane · 1855 Recommended See details →
The song of Hiawatha Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · 1855 Recommended See details →
Familiar quotations; a collection of passages, phrases, and proverbs traced to their sources in ancient and modern liter John Bartlett · 1855 Recommended See details →
Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert · 1856 Recommended See details →
The Life of Charlotte Bronte Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell · 1857 Recommended See details →
The Night Before Christmas Clement Clarke Moore · 1857 Recommended See details →
The Coral Island Robert Michael Ballantyne · 1858 Recommended See details →
The autocrat of the breakfast-table Sr. Oliver Wendell Holmes · 1858 Recommended See details →
The great controversy Ellen Gould Harmon White · 1858 Recommended See details →
The gorilla hunters Robert Michael Ballantyne · 1858 Recommended See details →
Age of chivalry; or, King Arthur and his knights Thomas Bulfinch · 1858 Recommended See details →
The three clerks Anthony Trollope · 1858 Recommended See details →
The cruise of the Betsey Hugh Miller · 1858 Recommended See details →
The Woman in White Wilkie Collins · 1859 Recommended See details →
On the origin of species by means of natural selection Charles Darwin · 1859 Recommended See details →

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