The Victorian Era: Scottish Fiction

The Victorian era, from 1837 to 1901, was the zenith of the British Empire, when the globe was turned pink and the small island of Britain ruled India, Australia, Canada and nations across Africa and the Middle East. Scotland, perhaps even Scotchland, was very much a part of Great Britain - Glasgow was one of the major port cities of the world, Scottish-born engineers helped the empire, Scots explorers mapped the globe. Scottish politics, however, were British politics.

Modern authors writing about the Victorian era tend to focus on crime fiction - the London-set novels of Anne Perry, or David Ashton's Edinburgh novels. The great Scottish Victorian novelists include Margaret Oliphant, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle and Violet Jacob. Stevenson's great Victorian novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde has been published in so many editions, we have a separate list below.