Six top books that illuminate the Victorian era

Rebecca Mead's best-seller My Life in Middlemarch is a personal ode to George Eliot's great 1874 novel.

At The Week magazine, Mead named her six favorite books that illuminate the Victorian era, including:

Angels and Ages by Adam Gopnik

Gopnik's double biography concerns two men born on the same day in 1809: Abraham Lincoln — who was not a Victorian — and Charles Darwin, who most decidedly was. Gopnik's deft touch as he weaves their worlds together belies the scrupulousness of his research.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue