The family saga is a popular form of fiction that originated in Victorian England. In nineteenth-century England, as in twentieth-century America, the rapid growth of prosperity in society as a whole made possible a rapid rise of many individuals. William Makepeace Thackeray's The Newcomers (1855), Charles Dickens' Great Expectations (1858), and Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now (1872) are just three early examples of fiction dealing with the effects of economic change on family life from generation to generation. In Victorian fiction the hero or heroine's challenge is to marry for love and for secure sufficient income to live comfortably. The family saga is the romance — or the fairy tale — of the middle class aspiration that children find more.....
This is a free excerpt of 121 words. This section contains 238 words. This
study guide contains 33,893 words (approx. 113 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Literature Guide with our Rich Man, Poor Man Access Pass.
