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Novel Approaches

London Review of Books
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Clare Bucknell, Thomas Jones and guests discuss a selection of 19th-century (mostly) English novels from Mansfield Park to New Grub Street, looking in particular at the roles played in the books by money and property. Novels covered: Mansfield Park (1814) by Jane Austen Crotchet Castle (1831) by Thomas Love Peacock Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Brontë Vanity Fair (1847) by William Makepeace Thackeray North and South (1854) by Elizabeth Gaskell Aurora Leigh (1856) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning Mill on the Floss (1860) by George Eliot Our Mutual Friend (1864) by Charles Dickens The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867) by Anthony Trollope Washington Square (1880)/Portrait (1881) by Henry James Kidnapped (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) by Thomas Hardy New Grub Street (1891) by George Gissing 

  1. 29/12/2025

    ‘New Grub Street’ by George Gissing

    George Gissing’s novels, Orwell once said, could be described in three words: ‘not enough money’. Writing is a matter of survival for the cast of ‘New Grub Street’ (1891), which follows a handful of literary men and women in London in the early 1880s. All of them have different ideas about success, love and personal fulfilment, and all those ideas – even the most brutally pragmatic – are subverted by the pressures of sexuality and the marketplace. In the final episode of Novel Approaches, Clare Bucknell and Tom Crewe discuss Gissing’s great portrait of London at its shabbiest. They explore Gissing’s unrelenting realism, his gift for writing nuanced characters, and why, in Tom’s words, if the novel is gloomy, it’s ‘an invigorating gloom’. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/applecrna⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingsna⁠⁠ Further reading from the LRB: Frank Kermode on George Gissing: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v05/n02/frank-kermode/squalor Rosemarie Bodenheimer on Gissing’s life: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v31/n13/rosemarie-bodenheimer/give-us-a-break Jane Miller on Gissing’s letters: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v13/n05/jane-miller/gissing-may-damage-your-health Ian Hamilton on a new ‘New Grub Street’: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v05/n02/ian-hamilton/diary Patricia Beer on Gissing’s women: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n14/patricia-beer/new-women AUDIO GIFTS Close Readings and audiobooks: https://lrb.me/audiogifts

    17 min

  2. 24/12/2025

    'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens

    Did Dickens ruin Christmas? He was certainly a pioneer in exploiting its commercial potential. A Christmas Carol sold 6,000 copies in five days when it was published on 19 December 1843, and Dickens went on to write four more lucrative Christmas books in the 1840s. But in many ways, this ‘ghost story of Christmas’ couldn’t be less Christmassy. The plot displays Dickens’s typical obsession with extracting maximum sentimentality from the pain and death of his characters, and the narrative voice veers unnervingly from preachy to creepy in its voyeuristic obsessions with physical excess. The book also offers a stiff social critique of the 1834 Poor Law and a satire on Malthusian ideas of population control. In this bonus episode from ‘Novel Approaches’, part of our Close Readings podcast, Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell join Tom to consider why Dickens’s dark tale has remained a Christmas staple. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/applecrna⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingsna⁠⁠ AUDIO GIFTS Close Readings and audiobooks: https://lrb.me/audiogifts

    33 min

  3. 01/12/2025

    ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ by Thomas Hardy

    After drunkenly selling his wife and child at auction, a young Michael Henchard resolves to live differently – and does so, skyrocketing from impoverished haytrusser to mayor of his adoptive town. Every unexpected disaster and sudden reversal in The Mayor of Casterbridge stems from its opening, in a plot which draws as much from realist fiction as Shakespearean tragedy and the sensation novel. Mary Wellesley and Mark Ford join Clare Bucknell to unpick the many strands in Thomas Hardy’s first Wessex novel. They explore how the novel – at once ‘algorithmic’, theatrical and fatalistic – is suffused with Hardy’s class anxieties, affinity with Dorset and fascination with pagan England. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/applecrna⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingsna⁠ Further reading and listening from the LRB: Mary and Mark discuss Hardy’s medievalism on the LRB Podcast: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/the-lrb-podcast/thomas-hardy-s-medieval-mind⁠ Mark discusses Poems of 1912-13 with Seamus Perry in Love and Death: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readings/love-and-death-poems-of-1912-13-by-thomas-hardy⁠  James Wood on Hardy’s life:⁠ https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n01/james-wood/anxious-pleasures⁠ Hugh Haughton on Hardy’s ghosts: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v07/n21/hugh-haughton/ghosts⁠ Next episode: New Grub Street by George Gissing.

    13 min

  4. 03/11/2025

    ‘Kidnapped’ by Robert Louis Stevenson

    Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped began life serialised in a children’s magazine, but its sophistication and depth won the lifelong admiration of Henry James. Set in the aftermath of the 1745 Jacobite rising, Kidnapped follows young lowlander David Balfour’s flight across the Highlands with the rebel Alan Breck Stewart. In Stevenson’s hands, a straightforward adventure story becomes a vivid exploration of friendship, the body, and social and political division. In this episode of Novel Approaches, Clare Bucknell is joined by Stevenson fans Andrew O’Hagan and Tom Crewe. They explore Stevenson’s startlingly modern handling of perspective and pacing, his approach to the art of fiction, and the value of being ‘betwixt and between’. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/applecrna⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingsna⁠ Further reading in the LRB: Andrew O’Hagan on Stevenson’s life: ⁠⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v27/n04/andrew-o-hagan/in-his-hot-head⁠⁠ ...his circle: ⁠⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n10/andrew-o-hagan/bournemouth⁠⁠ ...and his home in Edinburgh: ⁠⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n01/andrew-o-hagan/diary⁠⁠ P.N. Furbank on R.L.S.’s letters: ⁠⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v16/n16/p.n.-furbank/what-sort-of-man⁠⁠ Matthew Bevis on Treasure Island: ⁠⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n20/matthew-bevis/kids-gone-rotten⁠⁠ Next episode: The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy.

    16 min

  5. 05/10/2025

    ‘The Portrait of a Lady’ by Henry James

    In The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James borrows from Eliot, Austen, folktales and potboilers, but ‘the thing that he took from nowhere was Isabel Archer’. James transformed the 19th-century novel through his evocation of Isabel, a woman who wants and suffers in a profoundly new (and American) way. Deborah Friedell and Colm Toíbín join Tom to discuss the novel that established Henry James as ‘the Master’. They dissect James’s and his characters’ complicated motivations, the significance of his 1905-6 revisions, and the ways in which a ‘primitive plot’ irrupts in a painstakingly subtle and stylish novel. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/applecrna⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingsna⁠⁠ Further reading in the LRB: Colm Toíbín on Henry James: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v30/n01/colm-toibin/a-man-with-my-trouble⁠ Ruth Bernard Yeazell on Henry James’s life and notebooks: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v10/n01/ruth-bernard-yeazell/the-henry-james-show⁠ James Wood on The Portrait of a Lady: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n19/james-wood/perfuming-the-money-issue⁠ Next time on Novel Approaches: 'Kidnapped!' by Robert Louis Stevenson. LRB Audiobooks Discover audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksna

    14 min

  6. 07/09/2025

    ‘The Last Chronicle of Barset’ by Anthony Trollope

    Trollope enthusiasts Tom Crewe and Dinah Birch say they could have chosen any one of his 47 novels for this episode, so it’s no wonder Elizabeth Bowen called him ‘the most sheerly able of the Victorian novelists’. They settled on The Last Chronicle of Barset: a model example of Anthony Trollope’s gift for comedy, pathos, social commentary and masterful dialogue. At the heart of Last Chronicle is a mystery: how did the impoverished Reverend Crawley get his hands on a cheque for £20 that no one can account for, and is he capable of theft? The scandal has dire repercussions not only for Reverend Crawley, but the whole county: his ostracision raises broader questions about inequity in the church; it sparks rifts between his daughter, her would-be husband and his parents; and it gives his young relative Johnny Eames an excuse to flee the entanglements of London high society for the continent, in search of the only man who may be able to solve the puzzle. Although it’s the final book in the Barchester series, Last Chronicle can be read as a standalone novel, and Tom and Dinah join Thomas Jones to explore its sensitivities, ambivalences and sheer readability. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/applecrna⁠⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingsna⁠ Further reading in the LRB: John Sutherland: Trollopiad ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v14/n01/john-sutherland/trollopiad⁠ Richard Altick: Trollope’s Delight ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n08/richard-altick/trollope-s-delight⁠ Next time on Novel Approaches: 'The Portrait of a Lady' by Henry James. LRB Audiobooks Discover audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksna

    16 min

  7. 10/08/2025

    'Our Mutual Friend' by Charles Dickens

    'Our Mutual Friend' was Dickens’s last completed novel, published in serial form in 1864-65. The story begins with a body being dredged from the ooze and slime of the Thames, then opens out to follow a wide array of characters through the dust heaps, paper mills, public houses and dining rooms of London and its hinterland. For this episode, Tom is joined by Rosemary Hill and Tom Crewe to make sense of a complex work that was not only the last great social novel of the period but also gestured forwards to the crisp, late-century cynicism of Oscar Wilde. They consider the ways in which the book was responding to the darkening mood of mid-Victorian Britain and the fading of the post-Waterloo generation, as well as the remarkable flexibility of its prose, with its shifting modes, tenses and perspectives, that combine to make 'Our Mutual Friend' one of the most rewarding of Dickens’s novels. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/applecrna⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingsna⁠ Next time on Novel Approaches: 'The Last Chronicle of Barset' by Anthony Trollope Further reading in the LRB: John Sutherland on Peter Ackroyd's Dickens: ⁠https://lrb.me/nadickens1⁠ David Trotter on Dickens's tricks: ⁠https://lrb.me/nadickens2⁠ Brigid Brophy on Edwin Drood: ⁠https://lrb.me/nadickens3⁠ LRB Audiobooks Discover audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksna

    17 min

  8. 13/07/2025

    ‘The Mill on the Floss’ by George Eliot

    The Mill on the Floss is George Eliot’s most autobiographical novel, and the first she published after her identity as a woman was revealed. A ‘dreamscape’ version of her Warwickshire childhood, the book is both a working-through and a reimagining of her life. Ruth Yeazell and Deborah Friedell join Tom to discuss the novel and its protagonist Maggie Tullliver, for whom duty – societal, familial, self-imposed – continually conflicts with her personal desires. They explore the book’s submerged sexuality, its questioning of conventional gender roles, and the way Eliot’s satirical impulse is counterbalanced by the complexity of her characters. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://lrb.me/applecrna⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingsna⁠ Further reading in the LRB: Rachel Bowlby on reading George Eliot: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/naeliot1⁠⁠ Dinah Birch on Eliot’s journals: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/naeliot2⁠⁠ Rosemary Ashton on Eliot and sex: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/naeliot3⁠⁠ Gordon Haight’s speech on Eliot at Westminster Abbey: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/naeliot4⁠⁠ Audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksna⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

    17 min
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Clare Bucknell, Thomas Jones and guests discuss a selection of 19th-century (mostly) English novels from Mansfield Park to New Grub Street, looking in particular at the roles played in the books by money and property. Novels covered: Mansfield Park (1814) by Jane Austen Crotchet Castle (1831) by Thomas Love Peacock Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Brontë Vanity Fair (1847) by William Makepeace Thackeray North and South (1854) by Elizabeth Gaskell Aurora Leigh (1856) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning Mill on the Floss (1860) by George Eliot Our Mutual Friend (1864) by Charles Dickens The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867) by Anthony Trollope Washington Square (1880)/Portrait (1881) by Henry James Kidnapped (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) by Thomas Hardy New Grub Street (1891) by George Gissing 

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    London Review of Books
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    London Review of Books
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