Is the novel a category of knowledge that merits serious study? Even if the novel has shed the stigma of being mindless entertainment, one might easily assume that reading a novel is not "studying," unless one reads closely and carefully, preferably from a scholarly edition or for a scholarly purpose. "Novel Pedagogy" explores…

Alison Wolf's article on Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure" ("Adults Learning," January 2009) rightly sees the links between the barriers facing the eponymous hero of the novel and his modern-day counterpart seeking education rather than vocational training, and prompts a revisiting of this novel, which has, more than once, been…

Discussion of the Victorian outlook on life with emphasis on the works of Browning, Tennyson and George Eliot. The author suggests that these authors attempted to "reconstruct christianity and to find a "firm basis for social progress and personal fulfillment. (Author/AP)