[help] trains and immigrants in En lit

[bookclover]

Hello everyone,

I am helping a friend on a research she's doing. She's looking for novels where trains are mentioned as part of progress, industrialisation and the likes and another on 'immigrants'.
Just to narrow the research down she's focusing on the 20th cen (+ end of the 19th) so I suggested Conrad and Dickens: is there any other author you could suggest please?

Thanks so much for your help!!!

[prendrelemick]

Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell. But its a dry old read.

[Emil Miller]

Hello everyone,

I am helping a friend on a research she's doing. She's looking for novels where trains are mentioned as part of progress, industrialisation and the likes and another on 'immigrants'.
Just to narrow the research down she's focusing on the 20th cen (+ end of the 19th) so I suggested Conrad and Dickens: is there any other author you could suggest please?

Thanks so much for your help!!!

One novel in which trains are an intrinsic part of the story is La Bete Humaine by Emile Zola (I don't know the English title). Set in Paris at the end of the 19th century, it is a great novel about the people who work for the railways. The ending is truly astounding.

[Sapphire]

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but I ran into it a while ago: National Railway Museum - Moving Stories (http://www.moving-stories.org.uk/index.php). It's not exactly one book or something, but it might be worth checking out ;)

No literature comes to mind, but I'll keep an eye out :)

[JBI]

English pertaining to England?

[The Comedian]

English pertaining to England?

That's what I was wondering too.

If the novel doesn't have to pertain specifically to England, I suggest My Antonia by Willa Cather. The bulk of the narrative is set before the arrival of the train to the western prairies. But prospect of the train and the changes that will ensue afterward, affect the romantic tone of the work.

You might also look at Walden also. Some of Thoreau's best passages deal with the train and the prospects they bring, both positivie and negative.

Again, both of these books are by American authors. So if it's English writers that you're looking for, I'm sure there are others here who can help you better than me.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Mr Sherlock Holmes perhaps?

[bookclover]

English pertaining to England?

Well, I'd say in English (in general) but suggestions on books in other languages are also welcome;-))

[dafydd manton]

Surely The Railway Children - admittedly for the younger reader, but still qualifies. Quite a few of the Sherlock Holmes stories feature railways, too

[Wilde woman]

The Comedian beat me to it, but My Antonia jumped to my mind as well. A railway station plays an interesting role in The Important of Being Earnest, though not in an industrializing way. Also, I read a bit of criticism lately claiming that the train in Anna Karenina is a modernized example of deus ex machina.

[kelby_lake]

Railway Children leapt into my mind.