This Side of Paradise Winner!

I'm here to announce the winner of This Side of Paradise! The publisher has donated a copy and will be sending it to my lucky winner...

Congrats to Lori of The Coffee Girl!

I will be e-mailing you shortly to get your mailing information.

Thank you to everyone for entering!

This Side of Paradise Giveaway!

I'm really excited to show you this beautiful edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. I received a copy for review a couple of months ago, and while I am still reading it, I cannot rave enough about the gorgeous edition.

And, luckily for you, the publisher has another copy waiting for a lucky U.S. reader. Alma Books is responsible for this pretty edition (the covers for the other Fitzgeralds are equally amazing) and its being distributed by Trafalgar Square Publishing and iPg.

If you are interested in learning more about the edition, feel free to visit the book's webpage.

On to the giveaway...

The giveaway is open to U.S. residents only. You need to be 13 years of age or older.

To enter, leave a comment here stating such by Friday, April 12 at 11:59 PM EST with your e-mail address. I will pull a winner, contact you for your mailing information, then send that on so your lovely book will be sent your way. Sound good? I hope so!

Good luck!

Winners for the Oldies but Goodies Mini-Challenge.

First, I want to apologize that I am announcing my winners so late-I was out all day with my husband and just got home a little while ago.

I had a great time reading through your entries! I went to random.org to pick my winners and you'll see them here in reverse order. Since I had over 100 entries, I am adding a third winner!

First up is our winner of ONE PEL title....Congrats to...

Meredith of Boats Against the Current!

The second winner get their choice of THREE PEL titles. Congrats to...

Laura of Devouring Texts!

Last is our big winner who gets to choose FIVE PEL titles. Congrats to...

 Nomad Reader!

Winners-I will be sending you an e-mail soon to touch base about your titles!

Thank you all for entering. I will give you a hint and let you know that I will be doing a holiday themed giveaway with PEL titles as well. Make sure to come back and visit me! :)

Keep on reading!

The "Oldies But Goodies" Mini-Challenge.

Welcome readathoners!

I hope your readathon day is going wonderfully, and that you are reading a slew of amazing things. While I signed up to participate, I won't be starting my reading until later tonight (some things came up that I have to take care of today). 

In any case, I DO have a mini-challenge for you. A couple of years ago, I hosted a similar challenge and passed out some wonderful Penguin Clothbounds to the winners. I decided that I really wanted to host something similar, because hey, I read a lot of classics round these parts...

But instead of those Penguin Clothbounds, I decided to offer up something a little more exciting-Penguin's new English Library Collection (henceforth called PEL). You can see my own budding PEL collection at right. What I love about these titles is that they have the same style and covers as the clothbounds, but in a broader selection of titles! They're wonderful books...and I want to share them with two winners.

The first winner of this challenge will win their choice of FIVE TITLES from the PEL line. The second winner will get to choose THREE TITLES. And if 100 people enter, I'll add on a third winner who will get their choice of ONE TITLE. If you want to know what titles are available, you can visit the PEL Website to see the covers and titles (I should comment that the collection consists of 100 titles-30 of which haven't been released just yet).

The Rules:

• You must be a participant of the readathon to enter.
• You must 13 years of age or older.
• This challenge is open to anyone that the Book Depository delivers to (most countries).
• You MUST leave me an e-mail in your comment below so I can contact you if you win.
• To officially enter, leave a comment below (with your e-mail) and your answer to the following question: What classic book should ALL high school aged children read and why?
• This challenge will end after three hours (*I do want to note that I may not post winners right away. For that, I apologize, but I have something I have to take care of this afternoon). I will disqualify any comments left after that time has passed.

Good luck! I look forward to reading your answers and sharing those titles with my students!

A Victorian Celebration Wrap-up and Giveaway Winners.

Wow. I have been so impressed by the response to my little Victorian event. There are almost 230 posts on the Master Post! That's simply amazing! And if you still have a lingering post, feel free to add them in the future. I know that I have quite a few posts that I never found the time to add. :)

I have to admit that I am a bit sad the event ended and that many of us will be moving on to other books. For me, the hyper-focus on Victorian literature was a good and a bad thing. Good because I managed to read a lot of great Victorians, but bad because I burned myself out just a little bit. I know I will bounce back as soon as I get sucked into the next great book. But now, I can just look back and be happy with the titles I managed to read in June and July. Here is what I finished:

• The Lifted Veil by George Eliot
• The Warden by Anthony Trollope
• Middlemarch by George Eliot
• Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
• Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
• Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
• The Dickens Bicentenary
• And half of Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope

So, all in all, I had a great two months!

I'm hoping you enjoyed the event. I love hosting things like this, and have rough plans in mind for a few more monthly themed projects in the future (probably not in 2012, however). I am looking for some feedback and suggestions for the future. If you could take a few minutes to fill out this feedback form, I would greatly appreciate it!

Feedback Form

I also have some unfinished business to take care of-mainly, some giveaway winners! I got a little lax about announcing winners in the last couple of weeks (sorry about that), but here are winners from the last few giveaways...

The winner for the copy of Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone...

Annette of Impressions in Ink!

The winner for the copy of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield...

Andi of Estella's Revenge!

For the Bronte giveaway, no one entered for poor Emily, so I am going to give away one for a Charlotte entry and two for Anne (mainly because I read my first Anne this month!)

The winner for a Charlotte title is...

Athena of Aquatique! 

The two winners for Anne are...

Terri-maree of Bibliophilia and Adam of Adam's Bibliomania!

Lastly, the winner of Anthony Trollope's The Warden...

Faith Hope and Cherry Tea!

I am also sending a Victorian book of choice (up to $15 in value) to Becky of Becky's Book Reviews (because she read a TON of books) as well as a book to Claudia of Lit Hitchhiker (for being a random number I pulled off the master list) and O of Delaisse (again, random number pulled from the master list). 

Winners, I will be contacting you via e-mail at some point today. If you see this before I get to you, feel free to shoot me an e-mail first!

Thank you all for participating! I had a wonderful time and I hope you did too!

Austen in August 6 Book Giveaway!

I am really excited that August is here, and with it, Adam's wonderful Austen in August Event! I have been anxiously awaiting Adam's event since he first mentioned it on twitter a few months ago.

I have been a big fan of Austen since I was in high school and first decided to read Pride and Prejudice. I slowly worked my way through each of her 6 main novels, finishing with Persuasion only 2 years ago. However, in my slow Austen reading, I have also collected sets of her novels...to the point that I simply have too many Austen collections.

In honor of Adam's fabulous event, and my own love for Austen, I am giving away six Austen titles to six lucky winners. They comprise a full set of her complete novels, so there should be something here for everyone!

All of the titles are Barnes and Noble Classics editions. To enter to win one of these lovelies, please read the following rules and comment below:

• This giveaway will be open to any residents of the U.S. or Canada (I am willing to ship one book to one winner outside of the U.S. or Canada...so I will allow for one international winner if your name is pulled!).
• You MUST be a participant of Austen in August to enter.
• You MUST be 13 years or older
• You do not have to follow me or subscribe to qualify
• The winner will have 48 hours to respond or I will pick a new winner.
• To enter, comment on this post and provide the following information: an e-mail so I can get in touch with you if you win, the title you would like to be entered for, and what Austen titles you are planning to read for the event!
• The giveaway will be open until 11:59 PM on Monday, August 6, 2012 EST.

Good luck! I hope one of these six titles will be coming your way soon!

The Warden Giveaway (A Victorian Celebration).

Were you all aware that we have less than a week left in July? I feel as though time as flown by!

I have not been the best blogger the last week or two (more on that some other time), but I am still blown away by the number of you still taking on Victorian titles. I finally finished Nicholas Nickleby this week, which made me do a dance all over my apartment. And yes, my husband made fun of me.

I also started Barchester Towers, but have only made it to page 30 or so. I am enjoying it a lot more than the last time I attempted to read it. I think its because I read The Warden back in June, so all of it is clicking into place.

Speaking of The Warden, that's the title I am giving away today. Here is a little synopsis taken from Goodreads.com:

"The book centers on the character of Mr. Harding, a clergyman of great personal integrity, whose charitable income far exceeds the purpose for which it was intended. Young John Bold turns his reforming zeal to exposing what he considers to be an abuse of privilege, despite being in love with Mr. Harding's daughter Eleanor. The novel was highly topical as a case regarding the misapplication of church funds was the scandalous subject of contemporary debate. But Trollope uses this specific case to explore and illuminate the universal complexities of human motivation and social morality."

If you want my thoughts on Trollope's book, you can also read my post right here. I quite enjoyed the book, and Trollope's trolloping nature. :)

So, up for grabs this week is a new Penguin English Library Edition of Anthony Trollope's The Warden. I have the same edition (why yes, I ordered two when I ordered mine), and I am happy to tell you that the lovely folks at Penguin are publishing the entire Chronicles of Barsetshire in the collection. That way, if you are a crazy book collecting maniac like myself, you can have a matching set (Because who doesn't love a matching set of books??). 

Anyway, to enter, read the following and comment below: 

• This giveaway will be open to any residents of the U.S. or Canada
• You MUST be a participant of A Victorian Celebration to enter.
• You MUST be 13 years or older
• You do not have to follow me or subscribe to qualify
• You MUST leave me your e-mail so that I contact you if you win
• The winner will have 48 hours to respond or I will pick a new winner.
• To enter, comment on this post and answer the following question: What has been your favorite part of A Victorian Celebration?
• The giveaway will be open until 11:59 PM on Wednesday, August 1, 2012 EST.

Good luck!!

(Just to let you know, when I wrap up the event next week, there will be a few more winners announced. Be on the lookout for that).

David Copperfield Giveaway (A Victorian Celebration).

*This was supposed to post on Friday, but because of internet issues, did not. The ending date has been adjusted*

Well, we are in the home stretch for the Victorian Celebration folks! With about 2 weeks left in July, I am wondering whether I will ever manage to finish Nicholas Nickleby and Barchester Towers-the two books I REALLY want to get done before the end of the month. Granted, this week has been rather hectic, but I really need to get in some more reading time this week!

Today I am giving away a book that is very close to my heart. I have struggled with Dickens since I was in ninth grade, but I am determined to like him. In February, I read HIS favorite work, David Copperfield, and fell in love with it. Hands down, it is the best book I have read in 2012.

Here is a little synopsis taken from Goodreads.com:

"David Copperfield is the story of a young man’s adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist. Among the gloriously vivid cast of characters he encounters are his tyrannical stepfather, Mr. Murdstone; his formidable aunt, Betsey Trotwood; the eternally humble yet treacherous Uriah Heep; frivolous, enchanting Dora; and the magnificently impecunious Micawber, one of literature’s great comic creations.

In David Copperfield—the novel he described as his “favorite child”—Dickens drew revealingly on his own experiences to create one of his most exuberant and enduringly popular works, filled with tragedy and comedy in equal measure."

It is a FABULOUS book and one that I cannot recommend enough! 

When I ordered some of the new Penguin English Library editions, I immediately added this in my cart for me...and one for you! One lucky winner will win a brand new copy of Dickens' David Copperfield. To enter, read the following and comment below:

• This giveaway will be open to any residents of the U.S. or Canada
• You MUST be a participant of A Victorian Celebration to enter.
• You MUST be 13 years or older
• You do not have to follow me or subscribe to qualify
• You MUST leave me your e-mail so that I contact you if you win
• The winner will have 48 hours to respond or I will pick a new winner.
• To enter, comment on this post and answer the following question: What are your reading plans for the remainder of A Victorian Celebrations?
• The giveaway will be open until 11:59 PM on Sunday, July 22, 2012 EST.

Good luck!

The Moonstone Giveaway (A Victorian Celebration).

I'm feeling quite a bit better about my progress for the celebration. I FINALLY finished Middlemarch the other night, so now I am flying through some smaller pieces!

I have to tell you that as we enter the second month of the Celebration, I am still blown away by the response. You kids just keep on reading, don't you?

And as long as you continue to read, I'm going to keep giving books away. :) I hope you don't mind!

This week's book is another that I haven't had a chance to read myself, but it is on the reading pile for the event. It is one that if I don't get to during the Celebration, I will definitely make time for it this fall.

Let's hear a little bit about it from Goodreads.com, shall we?

"The Moonstone, a yellow diamond looted from an Indian temple and believed to bring bad luck to its owner, is bequeathed to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday. That very night the priceless stone is stolen again and when Sergeant Cuff is brought in to investigate the crime, he soon realizes that no one in Rachel’s household is above suspicion. Hailed by T. S. Eliot as ‘the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels’, The Moonstone is a marvellously taut and intricate tale of mystery, in which facts and memory can prove treacherous and not everyone is as they first appear."

Today's giveaway is for a new Barnes and Noble edition of Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone. To enter, read and comment below:

• This giveaway will be open to any residents of the U.S. or Canada
• You MUST be a participant of A Victorian Celebration to enter.
• You MUST be 13 years or older
• You do not have to follow me or subscribe to qualify
• You MUST leave me your e-mail so that I contact you if you win
• The winner will have 48 hours to respond or I will pick a new winner.
• To enter, comment on this post and answer the following question: If scholars were to find ONE unpublished novel from the Victorian era, who would you want to be the author of it and why?
• The giveaway will be open until 11:59 PM on Friday, July 13, 2012 EST.

Good luck-and I can't wait to read your answers!

Guest Giveaway!

Hey you participants in A Victorian Celebration!

There is a lovely giveaway taking place over at Kristi Loves Books! The giveaway is open internationally and you can win a wonderful Vintage edition of a Victorian novel. You can visit this post to enter!

Lady Audley's Secret Giveaway (A Victorian Celebration).

I feel like I am way behind most of you! I am still trucking through Middlemarch and Nicholas Nickleby. I thought I would have been done with both of them by now, but no. :) Both books are wonderful-I've just had a bit less reading time than I would have liked. 

Anyway, this week's giveaway is for book I haven't read yet! It has been on my TBR for ages and is one of the titles on my Classics Club list. When I was picking out some titles from the new Penguin English Library series, I immediately put this one in my shopping cart. And then I added a second one for one of you. :) 

Here is a summary taken from Goodreads.com...

"Lady Audley's Secret (1862) was one of the most widely read novels in the Victorian period. It exemplifies "sensation fiction" in featuring a beautiful criminal heroine, an amateur detective, blackmail, arson, violence, and plenty of suspenseful action. To its contemporary readers, it also offered the thrill of uncovering blackmail and criminal violence within the homes of the upper class. The novel makes trenchant critiques of Victorian gender roles and social stereotypes, and it creates significant sympathy for the heroine, despite her criminal acts, as she suffers from the injustices of the "marriage market" and rebels against them."

Today's giveaway is for a new Penguin English Library edition of Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret. To enter, read the following and comment below:

• This giveaway will be open to any residents of the U.S. or Canada (my international participants, I have special giveaways planned for you later on).
• You MUST be a participant of A Victorian Celebration to enter.
• You MUST be 13 years or older
• You do not have to follow me or subscribe to qualify
• You MUST leave me your e-mail so that I contact you if you win
• The winner will have 48 hours to respond or I will pick a new winner.
• To enter, comment on this post and answer the following question: What post from the Master Post have you most enjoyed reading so far in the celebration? Why?
• The giveaway will be open until 11:59 PM on Friday, July 6, 2012 EST.

Good luck!

Author Focus: Charles Dickens and Giveaway (A Victorian Celebration).

Welcome to this week's Author Focus on Charles Dickens! I have already featured George Eliot and Wilkie Collins.

Anyone who has read me for awhile knows that I haven't always been the biggest fan of Dickens. In fact, I used to hate him. Granted, I wasn't really being fair to him or his work, and as I have let myself explore his life and work, I've come around.

I still like to fondly refer to Mr. Dickens as my literary arch-nemesis. I don't think he would mind...but I think he would chuckle at my prejudices against some of his work. :) But I'm here to share what I've learned about Mr. Dickens in my explorations of his life-and what a life it was!

Charles Dickens was born in 1812 to John and Elizabeth Dickens as the second of eight children. When he was relatively young, Charles was sent to school and his family was doing okay. That changed in 1824 when his father, John, was sent to debtor's prison. His wife and the younger children lived with John in the prison while the older kids found homes with relatives and family friends. At only 12 years old, Charles found employment at Warren's Blacking House to help support his family. He would often work ten or twelve hour days for minimal pay. His experiences working as a child had a lasting impact on his life and writing (Oliver Twist comes to mind).

Eventually, John inherited some money from a relative and found his way out of prison. Rather than remove their son from his place of employment right away, Elizabeth Dickens waited. Like his work experiences, this lack of care for his well-being had a significant impact on Charles. You can see evidence of his feelings towards women and mothers in many of his novels.

Charles eventually found work in a law office as a clerk. Again, his experiences working in this kind of environment impacted his writing later on in life (Bleak House and Nicholas Nickleby spring to my mind!). Charles eventually turned to a journalism career, working for various magazines for a number of years.

It was during his time working for magazines and journals that Charles began to seriously start writing. His first set of periodicals was eventually collected into a book, Sketches by Boz (Boz was a pseudonym). These sketches caught the attention of publishers Chapman and Hall, who hired Dickens to write in accompaniment to a series of illustrations done by Robert Seymour. The result was The Pickwick Papers, Dickens' first novel.

In 1836, Charles married Catherine Thomson Hogarth and continued to publish new novels in episodic form. By only releasing one portion of his new novels at a time, Dickens began to master the form of writing. Readers would wait anxiously for the next installment to be published. His fame began to rise with each new publication. As he aged, his novels also began to tackle more difficult themes-namely socioeconomic issues.

Dickens was prolific even while he was alive. He was a major voice in the era and befriended many of his contemporaries, including Wilkie Collins. Together, they wrote numerous plays and short stories. It was during one of these co-written plays that Dickens met Ellen Ternan. He fell so in love that he made the decision to leave Catherine for Ellen in 1858. Since divorce was still relatively taboo, Charles and Catherine agreed on a separation, but Charles spent the rest of his life with Ellen. Yet another Victorian writer scandal (that makes us 3 for 3!).

It was after this that Dickens began a series of reading and speaking tours. He traveled throughout Europe and the United States on his tours. It was during this time that many of his "major works" were published, including Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities. Many critics believe that he entered a serious mode of thinking about his writing and changes he could make in society. It what around this time that he also began some serious philanthropic work in England.

On June 9, 1865, Dickens' life took a turn. He was involved in the Staplehurst Rail Crash. It was a horrific event at the time, and Dickens was in one of the only cars that wasn't overturned. He was on board with Ellen and a few other friends when the train crashed. He spent hours attending to those who were injured or dying until further help came. He even risked going back into the train to rescue the unfinished manuscript of Our Mutual Friend.

The crash and the result changed his life. After the crash, he began to be very introspective and never seemed to fully recover to where he was before. His works took a darker turn and his health deteriorated. Charles eventually passed away on June 9, 1870-five years to the day AFTER the rail crash. He was laid to rest, against his wishes, in Poet's Corner at Westminster Abbey.

Dickens is known not only for his life and legacy, but for his popularity, characters, and enduring themes. He is one of the world's most popular authors and continues to have a lasting impression on our society and popular culture (I think we all know what a "Scrooge" is). Not only did he have humor and laughter in his works, but also depth and social commentary. I know that I have begun to look past the surface of his novels to find the deeper meaning. And while I may be coming around to his novels and style of writing, I'll always think of him as my literary arch-nemesis. :)

Dickens' complete novels include, in order of publication:

• The Pickwick Papers
• Oliver Twist
• Nicholas Nickleby
• The Old Curiosity Shop
• Barnaby Rudge
• Martin Chuzzlewit
• Dombey and Son
• David Copperfield
• Bleak House
• Hard Times
• Little Dorrit
• A Tale of Two Cities
• Great Expectations
• Our Mutual Friend
• The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished)

To celebrate Charles Dickens, his life, and his works, I am giving away a copy of the Dickens Bicentenary. I discussed my own copy in this post. It is a phenomenal collection, complete with inserts, photographs, and way more information about Charles than I could include in this post. To enter, read the following and comment below:

• This giveaway is open to anyone! As long as the Book Depository delivers to your country, you can enter (I reserve the right to ship from another company if you live within the U.S.). 
• You MUST be a participant of A Victorian Celebration to enter.
• You MUST be 13 years or older
• You do not have to follow me or subscribe to qualify
• You MUST leave me your e-mail so that I contact you if you win
• The winner will have 48 hours to respond or I will pick a new winner.
• To enter, comment on this post with your answer to this question: What Dickens character do you think is the most memorable and why?
• The giveaway will be open until 11:59 PM on Friday July 6, 2012 EST.

Good luck!

*Information in this post was taken from wikipedia.org and the Dickens Bicentenary*

A Victorian Celebration Giveaway Contest.

To all Victorian Celebration participants!

There is an AMAZING contest and giveaway going on over at Roof Beam Reader starting today! The prize is your choice of any Victorian novel shipped from the Book Depository-yep, an international giveaway! :)

You can enter by clicking this link.

Good luck, and keep on reading those lovely Victorian novels!

Weekly Giveaway Winners.

Last week I had two giveaways up for participants of A Victorian Celebration. One was for a copy of George Eliot's Daniel Deronda and the other was for Charlotte Bronte's Shirley. I pulled both winners after the contests closed at midnight, and here are the winners:

The winner of Daniel Deronda is Michelle from The True Book Addict!

The winner of Shirley is Adam from Roof Beam Reader!

Congratulations winners! I will be e-mailing you to get mailing information.

Remember that there is a giveaway each week. This week's giveaway is for a copy of The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. You can enter to win at this post.

A Victorian Celebration: The Mayor of Casterbridge Giveaway!

I asked Twitter on Sunday whether I should read Middlemarch or Far From the Madding Crowd next, and those who weighed in steered me toward the Eliot title. And while I am perfectly happy with that choice (because I love Eliot so much), I'm still craving some Hardy.

To get a little bit of that craving out of my system, I decided to put the second Hardy title I have sitting in my "giveaway" pile up as this week's giveaway for the event. :)

When I made my project list...I had never heard of Hardy. I don't know if that speaks to the level of my college education or my own ignorance, but he was never on a reading list and he was never brought up in one of my classes! But, I was curious so I added a slew of his titles to the 250 list, and the very first Hardy title I read was The Mayor of Casterbridge. It blew me away and made me a Hardy fan for life.

Now I would like to give one of you a new copy of the novel. To see if it strikes your fancy, here is a little summary taken from Goodreads.com...

"In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled ‘A Story of a Man of Character’, Hardy’s powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard is also an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town."

To enter to win a new Barnes and Noble edition of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, read and complete the following:

• This giveaway will be open to any residents of the U.S. or Canada (my international participants, I have special giveaways planned for you later on).
• You MUST be a participant of A Victorian Celebration to enter.
• You MUST be 13 years or older
• You do not have to follow me or subscribe to qualify
• You MUST leave me your e-mail so that I contact you if you win
• The winner will have 48 hours to respond or I will pick a new winner.
• To enter, comment on this post and answer the following question: What Victorian title should I read next for the event? Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy or Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte? (or something else-you suggest!)
• The giveaway will be open until 11:59 PM on Friday, June 29, 2012 EST.

Good luck and keep up the great job reading!

Random Post Giveaway Winner! (A Victorian Celebration).

I decided to take a gander at the number of crazy posts you guys have made on the Master Post. Wow! You guys have been reading a TON!

In celebration of all the reading you've been doing, I pulled a random number and that person (as soon as they see this post) gets to e-mail me their choice of a Victorian Classic to be sent to them from the Book Depository.

Congratulations to number...43! Bex from An Armchair By the Sea for her review of Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Shoot me an e-mail (my e-mail is on my profile page) by Friday so I can mail you your new book of choice! :)

Keep up the great reading everyone!

(*hint* There will probably be another random giveaway once we hit 100 links on that Master Post!)

Giveaway Winners (A Victorian Celebration).

There were two giveaways for A Victorian Celebration that ended last night. I'm here to announced the winners for the Thomas Hardy giveaway (a new copy of Far From the Madding Crowd) and the international giveaway for the winner's choice of classics.

The winner of the new Thomas Hardy title is...

Jean! 

And, I held a special giveaway for my international participants. Congrats to...

Cassandra!

And, for kicks, I am going to tack on a second winner for the international giveaway, just because I love you guys so much. Congrats to...

Cat!

Congrats to the winners. I will be e-mailing you shortly to get mailing information. 

Everyone else, there are still giveaways in progress! Go enter!

• Copy of Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
• Copy of Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
• Karen is giving away your choice of 22 titles!

Thanks for entering everyone. Keep up that great Victorian reading!

A Victorian Celebration: Shirley Giveaway!

I have to tell you guys, you are making me feel like I'm not reading fast enough. There are so many wonderful posts on the Master post! Keep up the great work!

It's time for the weekly giveaway (have you caught on that there is at least one giveaway a week? Because there is!).

This week's giveaway is for a book I haven't had a chance to read yet, but will sometime in the future. Shirley by Charlotte Bronte, is one of those books I know I'll be reading sooner, rather than later. I've loved the other titles by Charlotte that I've read, and I'm hoping someone will love this one too!

Some more information taken from Goodreads.com:

"Following the tremendous popular success of Jane Eyre, which earned her lifelong notoriety as a moral revolutionary, Charlotte Brontë vowed to write a sweeping social chronicle that focused on "something real and unromantic as Monday morning." Set in the industrializing England of the Napoleonic wars and Luddite revolts of 1811-12, Shirley (1849) is the story of two contrasting heroines. One is the shy Caroline Helstone, who is trapped in the oppressive atmosphere of a Yorkshire rectory and whose bare life symbolizes the plight of single women in the nineteenth century. The other is the vivacious Shirley Keeldar, who inherits a local estate and whose wealth liberates her from convention.

A work that combines social commentary with the more private preoccupations of Jane Eyre, Shirley demonstrates the full range of Brontë's literary talent. "Shirley is a revolutionary novel," wrote Brontë biographer Lyndall Gordon. "Shirley follows Jane Eyre as a new exemplar but so much a forerunner of the feminist of the later twentieth century that it is hard to believe in her actual existence in 1811-12. She is a theoretic possibility: what a woman might be if she combined independence and means of her own with intellect. Charlotte Brontë imagined a new form of power, equal to that of men, in a confident young woman [whose] extraordinary freedom has accustomed her to think for herself....Shirley [is] Brontë's most feminist novel.""

I can't wait to get to this one too!

Up for grabs is a new Penguin Classics edition of Charlotte Bronte's Shirley. To enter, read the rules and comment below!

• This giveaway will be open to any residents of the U.S. or Canada (my international participants, I have special giveaways planned for you later on).
• You MUST be a participant of A Victorian Celebration to enter.
• You MUST be 13 years or older
• You do not have to follow me or subscribe to qualify
• You MUST leave me your e-mail so that I contact you if you win
• The winner will have 48 hours to respond or I will pick a new winner.
• To enter, comment on this post and answer the following question: What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?
• The giveaway will be open until 11:59 PM on Friday, June 22, 2012 EST.

Good luck and keep up the great job reading!

Author Focus: George Eliot and Giveaway (A Victorian Celebration).

I am really excited to bring you the first in a series of weekly posts highlighting some of my favorite (and soon to be favorite) authors of the Victorian Era. I am hoping that by sharing a little more information, you'll decide to pick up one of their books, or decide to read something by them in the future. Maybe it's the teacher side of me, but I love sharing information about the writers I love. :)

Some of these "Author Focus" posts will also have a corresponding giveaway, so be on the lookout for those opportunities as well.

Today's Author Focus is on a personal favorite of mine-George Eliot. Before I get into some of the details and interesting tidbits of Eliot's life, I need to tell you why I feel such a strong connection to Eliot and her novels.

A few years ago, my grandmother became very sick (she had cancer). Since I was done with college and living at home, I would sometimes take her to her weekly doctor appointments. In the car, we would talk about anything and everything we could think of. She was also a huge reader, so books often came up. She mentioned one day that she wanted something different to read, so I was trying to rack my brain to think of a suggestion.

This was the same summer that I decided to make reading more classics a necessity (I think my rule was for every 3 "fun" books, I had to read a classic). Eliot was one of the first classics writers I discovered on my own, and having just finished Silas Marner, I suggested it to her. I ended up lending her my own copy. She ended up loving it, and I gave her the rest of the Eliot novels I owned (Including The Mill on the Floss, which I hadn't read yet). She loved them all!

Later that fall, she passed away. And now, whenever I look at my bookshelves and see my Eliot novels, I think of her. So Eliot will always be a favorite of mine. She reminds me of the wonderful woman my grandmother was and those weekly trips in the car.

I have been slowly discovering Eliot on my own since that time. I've made it through most of her longer works and just finished a shorter work earlier this week (The Lifted Veil). She is a write I admire, so I'm gong to give you just a little more information about her.

George Eliot's real name was Mary Anne Evans (she also went by Marian). She was born in 1818 and lived to 1880. She was a firecracker of a woman and seemed content with living her life on her own terms. She chose to write under a pen name for a number of reasons. First, she didn't want her work to be judged based on the fact that she was female. Many of her contemporary female writers focused on romance and she felt her novels were more than that. Evans wanted to be taken seriously as a writer, so she felt a male name would help her succeed. Second, she didn't want people poking into her private life and affairs. She wanted to separate herself from society's curiosity, which actually didn't work out for her.

One of the major scandals in her life was her affair and "marriage" to George Lewes. She met Lewes in 1851. Lewes was actually already married, but had an "open marriage" with his wife. When he met Evans/Eliot, they decided to live together and carry on as a married couple. This was okay with his wife, but obviously caused some scandal! It wasn't necessarily an unusual concept, since many of the other Victorians we're reading had affairs as well! I think what surprised most people is that they didn't try to hide their affair, or the fact they were living together while Lewes was legally married to another woman.

When Lewes died in 1878, Evans/Eliot was only alone for a short time. She met John Cross in 1880 and married him (legally). This also caused a bit of a scandal since he was 20 years younger than she was. Their marriage was short lived as she died in late 1880. Because of her lifestyle, she wasn't allowed to be buried in Westminster Abbey, but instead was buried in Highgate Cemetery. However, in 1980, a memorial was placed in Poet's Corner in her honor.

Eliot is most well-known for her depictions of rural life and society, which is one of my favorite aspects of her work. She manages to capture the true nature of her characters-their dreams, desires, and intricacies. I also love that she focuses on those individuals who fall outside the "norm" of society. And while her books can be lengthy, I think they are fast reads!

• Scenes from Clerical Life (1857)
• Adam Bede (1859)
• The Lifted Veil (1859) 
• The Mill on the Floss (1860)
• Silas Marner (1861)
• Romola (1863)
• Felix Holt, the Radical (1866)
• Middlemarch (1871-1872)
• Daniel Deronda (1876)

To honor one of my favorite writers, I'm also giving away a copy of one of her novels to one lucky participant of A Victorian Celebration. To win a new Barnes and Noble edition of her last novel, Daniel Deronda, read the following and comment below:

• This giveaway will be open to anyone who lives in the United States (My international participants-there is a giveaway just for YOU RIGHT HERE)!
• You MUST be a participant of A Victorian Celebration to enter.
• You MUST be 13 years or older
• You do not have to follow me or subscribe to qualify
• You MUST leave me your e-mail so that I contact you if you win
• The winner will have 48 hours to respond or I will pick a new winner.
• To enter, comment on this post with you intent to be entered.
• The giveaway will be open until 11:59 PM on Wednesday, June 20, 2012 EST.

Good luck! And tell me what Eliot novels you've read or loved!

Guest Giveaway! (A Victorian Celebration).

Participants of A Victorian Celebration-

The lovely Karen over at Books and Chocolate is hosting a FANTASTIC giveaway for you! There are...22 books to choose from, so I am sure there is something that will catch your eye. ;)

Good luck!