Robert Elsmere
A Victorian Crisis of Faith, Historical Biblical Criticism, and the Search for Ethical ChristianityBy Humphry Mrs. Ward
Length25h 31m
About this audiobook
Published in 1888, Robert Elsmere is a searching Victorian novel about the collision between inherited Christian belief and modern historical criticism. Its protagonist, an idealistic Anglican clergyman, gradually loses confidence in orthodox doctrine as scholarship, moral doubt, and contact with social suffering compel him to reconsider the foundations of faith. Combining psychological realism, theological debate, and the expansive social panorama of the nineteenth-century novel, Mrs. Ward's work dramatizes the period's crisis of belief without reducing it to mere polemic. Its measured prose, earnest dialogue, and intellectual architecture place it within the tradition of the problem novel, while its concern with ethical action anticipates later fiction of religious and social reform. Mary Augusta Ward, who published under the name Mrs. Humphry Ward, was formed by a profoundly literary and religious family: she was the granddaughter of Thomas Arnold and the niece of Matthew Arnold, and she knew the intellectual tensions of Victorian Anglicanism from within. Her engagement with contemporary biblical scholarship, theological liberalism, and debates over agnosticism gave the novel its unusual authority. Ward's own movement toward a more intellectually flexible Christianity informs Robert Elsmere's central conflict, even as the book preserves sympathy for traditional devotion and communal faith. Robert Elsmere is especially rewarding for readers interested in Victorian culture, the history of religious thought, and the relationship between literature and intellectual controversy. Though its discussions are demanding, its emotional seriousness and humane depiction of conscience give them dramatic force. It remains a valuable, challenging book for anyone wishing to understand how nineteenth-century fiction confronted modernity, doubt, and the possibility of an ethical life beyond dogma.
Audiobook details
GenreGeneral Fiction
Length25 hrs 31 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateDec 12, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1CHAPTER III
26BOOK IV CRISIS
2CHAPTER IV
27CHAPTER XXVI
3CHAPTER V
28CHAPTER XXVII
4CHAPTER VI
29CHAPTER XXVIII
5CHAPTER VII
30CHAPTER XXIX
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6CHAPTER VIII
31CHAPTER XXX
7CHAPTER IX
32BOOK V ROSE
8CHAPTER X
33CHAPTER XXXI
9BOOK II SURREY
34CHAPTER XXXII
10CHAPTER XI
35CHAPTER XXXIII
11CHAPTER XII
36CHAPTER XXXIV
12CHAPTER XIII
37CHAPTER XXXV
13CHAPTER XIV
38CHAPTER XXXVI
14CHAPTER XV
39BOOK VI NEW OPENINGS
15CHAPTER XVI
40CHAPTER XXXVII
16CHAPTER XVII
41CHAPTER XXXVIII
17CHAPTER XVIII
42CHAPTER XXXIX
18BOOK III THE SQUIRE
43CHAPTER XL
19CHAPTER XIX
44CHAPTER XLI
20CHAPTER XX
45CHAPTER XLII
21CHAPTER XXI
46CHAPTER XLIII
22CHAPTER XXII
47CHAPTER XLIV
23CHAPTER XXIII
48CHAPTER XLV
24CHAPTER XXIV
49BOOK VII GAIN AND LOSS
25CHAPTER XXV
50CHAPTER XLVI
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