Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of… the 1840's, pt. 1 (1840-1845)

Voted Lermontov. Dead Souls a worthy winner.

called it

On a whim I read The Black Spider, it was a heck of a ride. As a Christian morality tale it's about as convincing as the Book of Job - despite no personal appearances from the big man he's just as much of a colossal prick - but as weird/macabre fiction it's excellent. It takes a while to get going - the first quarter is a well observed but rather impersonally related framing story - but eventually you get a Machen-esque sense of the curtain being lifted on a universe far more inhuman and frightening than previously known, and a wild carnival of terror and death that rivals Poe. The initial image of the spider growing out of a woman's cheek and malevolently glaring at people is darkly comic but I was soon more emotionally engaged and full of sympathy for the peasants helplessly trapped between their brutal feudal lords, the murderous devil, and a vengeful and jealous God who offers no aid but will strike down with great fury on those who do not honour and obey him.

That sounds rad, will have to check that one out.

It really is great

Has anyone read Fanny Campbell? wikipedia calls Maturin the godfather of pulp fiction which sounds like it might be a good romp.

I have not, but am planning to give it to my wife for her birthday, as she is deep into pirates after watching Black Sails. So I'll let you know how it works out.

http://victorianserialnovels.org/serial-novel-timeline/

This is a pretty cool resource to see what was coming out month by month

nice, thanks for the link