Victorian Best Sellers by Year

1862

1863

1864

• Cranford ,Elizabeth Gaskell
• John Law,Harrison Ainsworth
• The Perpetual Curate,Margaret Oliphant
• Can You Forgive Her?, Anthony Trollope

1865

• Uncle Silas,Sheridan Le Fanu
• Lizzie Leigh The Grey Woman and Cousin Phillis (in a single volume), Elizabeth Gaskell
• The Spanish Match and Auriol,Harrison Ainsworth
• James Payn's Lost Sir Massingerd (serialialised)
• Married Beneath Him,James Payn
• Mirk Abbey, James Payn

1866

• Agnes and Miss Marjoribanks,Margaret Oliphant
• Felix Holt the Radical,George Eliot
• Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell
• The Ingoldsby Legends, Richard Barham
• The Lost Tales of Miletus, Bulwer-Lytton
• The Constable de Bourbon, Harrison Ainsworth
• The Clyffards of Clyffe,James Payn
• Not Wisely But Too Well , Rhoda Broughton
• Armadale,Wilkie Collins

1867

• Under Two Flags,Ouida
• Madonna Mary, Margaret Oliphant
• Cometh Up as a Flower Rhoda Broughton
• North and South,Elizabeth Gaskell
• A Dark Night's Work,Elizabeth Gaskell
• The Story of a Feather, Douglas Jerrold
• Old Court,Harrison Ainsworth
• The Last Chronicle of Barset,Anthony Trollope

1868

• Lady Emma Caroline Wood's Sorrow on the Sea
• Myddleton Pomfret, Harrison Ainsworth
• James Payn's Blondel Parva
• Margaret Oliphant's The Brownlows
• The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins

1869

• Mrs. Woolfe's Guy Vernon
• Margaret Oliphant's The Minister's Wife
• James Payn's A Perfect Treasure
• Anthony Trollope's Phineas Finn
• Wilkie Collins's Black and White

1870

• Lothair, Benjamin Disraeli
• Man and Wife, (3 vols.)Wilkie Collins
• Hilary St. Ives, Harrison Ainsworth
• Rhoda Broughton's Red as a Rose is She
• James Payn's Like Father, Like Son
• Margaret Oliphant's The Three Brothers
• The Vicar of Bulhampton, Anthony Trollope

1871

• Margaret Oliphant's Neighbours on the Green
• Desperate Remedies, Thomas Hardy
• A Daughter of Heth, William Black
• Not Wisely, but Too Well, Rhoda Broughton
• The Adventures of Harry Richmond George Meredith
• The Coming Race, Bulwer-Lytton
• Not Wooed, but Won, James Payn

1872

• At His Gates, Margaret Oliphant
• Under the Greenwood Tree, Thomas Hardy
• Good-bye, Sweetheart!, Rhoda Broughton
• Gwendoline's Harvest James Payn
• Goodbye Sweetheart, Rhoda Broughton
• Middlemarch George Eliot
• Erewhon(serialised 1871-1872), Samuel Butler
• Poor Miss Finch (3 vols.), Wilkie Collins

1873

• May, Margaret Oliphant
• Nancy, Rhoda Broughton
• A Pair of Blue Eyes (serialised 1872-3), Thomas Hardy
• Bulwer-Lytton's Kenelm Chillingly: His Adventures and Opinions
• James Payn's Murphy's Master
• Anthony Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds
• Wilkie Collins's The New Magdalen (2 vols.).

1874

• Margaret Oliphant's A Rose in June
• Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd (serialised)
• Bulwer-Lytton's The Parisians (serialised October, 1872-January, 1874).

1875

• Helen Mather's Comin' thro the Rye
• Margaret Oliphant's White Ladies
• Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now
• Wilkie Collins's The Law and the Lady

1876

• Thomas Hardy's The Hand of Ethelberta (serialised 1875-6)
• George Eliot's Daniel Deronda (serialised Feb.-Sept., 1876)
• Bulwer-Lytton's Pausanias the Spartan
• James Payn's Fallen Fortunes
• Margaret Oliphant's Caritˆ
• Rhoda Broughton's Joan
• Anthony Trollope's Phineas Redux
• Anthony Trollope'sThe Prime Minister
• Wilkie Collins's The Two Destinies (2 vols.).

1877

• Ouida's Ariadne
• Margaret Oliphant's Mrs. Arthur and Young Musgrave

1878

• Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native (serialised)
• James Payn's By Proxy
• Robert Louis Stevenson's Inland Voyage
• Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes
• Wilkie Collins's My Lady's Money: An Episode in the Life of a Young Girl

1879

• Margaret Oliphant's The Greatest Heiress in England
• Wilkie Collins's A Rogue's Life: From His Birth to His Marriage

1880

• Henry James's Washington Square
• Thomas Hardy's The Trumpet Major (serialised)
• James Payn's The Confidential Agent
• Margaret Oliphant's A Beleaguered City...
• Margaret Oliphant's That He Wiull Not When He May
• Rhoda Broughton's Second Thoughts
• Anthony Trollope's The Duke's Children
• George Gissing's Workers in the Dawn
• Wilkie Collins's Jezebel's Daughter (3 vols.).

1881

• J. H. Shorthouse's John Inglesant
• Thomas Hardy's A Laodicean (serialised 1880-1)
• Margaret Oliphant's Harry Joscelyn
• Anthony Trollope's Doctor Wortle's School
• Wilkie Collins's The Black Robe (3 vols.).

1882

• Thomas Hardy's Two on a Tower
• Margaret Oliphant's In Trust...
• Robert Louis Stevenson's Merry Men (serialised).

1883

• George Moore's A Modern Lover
• Anthony Trollope's Mr. Scarborough's Family
• Rhoda Broughton's Belinda
• Margaret Oliphant's The Ladies Lindores
• Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island
• Wilkie Collins's Heart and Science (3 vols.).

1884

• Margaret Oliphant's Sir Tom
• George Gissing's The Unclassed
• Wilkie Collins's I Say No (3 vols.).

1885

• Margaret Oliphant's Madam
• Alfred Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King completed.

1886

• Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped
• Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge< (serialised in The Graphic)
• Margaret Oliphant's Effie Ogilvie
• Margaret Oliphant'sA House Divided Against Itself
• Rhoda Broughton's Dr. Cupid
• Rhoda Broughton's Betty's Visions
• Rhoda Broughton's Mrs. Smith of Longmains
• Samuel Butler's Luck or Cunning
• George Gissing's Isabel Clarendon and Demos
• Wilkie Collins's The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story (3 vols.)
• Wilkie Collins's The Guilty River

1887

• Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders (serialised 1886-7)
• Margaret Oliphant's The Son of His Father
• George Gissing's Thyrza

1888

• Margaret Oliphant's A Memoir of the Life of John Tulloch
• Robert Louis Stevenson's The Black Arrow
• George Gissing's A Life's Morning

1889

• George Du Maurier's Peter Ibbetson
• Margaret Oliphant's Lady Car
• Margaret Oliphant's The Sequel of a Life
• Margaret Oliphant's A Poor Gentleman
• Robert Louis Stevenson's Master of Ballantrae
• George Gissing's The Nether World
• Wilkie Collins's The Legacy of Cain (3 vols).

1890

• Margaret Oliphant's Alas!
• and Kirsteen
• George Gissing's The Emancipated
• Wilkie Collins's Blind Love (3 vols.).

1891

• Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles (serialised 1891)
• Margaret Oliphant's Janet
• George Gissing's New Grub Street

1892

• Thomas Hardy's The Well-Beloved (serialised 1892)
• Margaret Oliphant's The Marriage of Elinor
• Margaret Oliphant's The Cuckoo in the Nest
• Rhoda Broughton's Mrs. Bligh
• Ford Maddox Ford's The Shifting of the Fire
• George Gissing's Denzil Quarrier and Born in Exile

1893

• Margaret Oliphant's Lady William and The Sorceress
• Robert Louis Stevenson's Catriona
• George Gissing's The Odd Women

1894

• George Du Maurier's Trilby
• Margaret Oliphant's The Prodigals and Their Inheritance
• George Gissing's In the Year of the Jubilee

1895

• Thomas Hardy's Jude The Obscure (serialised 1894-5)
• Almayer's Folly, Joseph Conrad
• Margaret Oliphant's Two Strangers
• Rhoda Broughton's Scylla or Charybdis?
• H. G. Wells' The Wonderful Visit
• H. G. Wells's The Time Machine
• George Gissing's Eve's Ransom Sleeping Fires

1896

• Margaret Oliphant's The Unjust Steward, or The Minister's Debt
• Margaret Oliphant's Old Mr. Tredgold
• Robert Louis Stevenson's Weir of Hermiston
• H. G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau
• George Gissing's The Paying Guest

1897

• Joseph Conrad's The Nigger of the Narcissus
• Margaret Oliphant's The Lady's Walk
• Rhoda Broughton's Dear Faustina
• H. G. Wells' The Invisible Man
• Bram Stoker's Dracula
• George Gissing's The Whirlpool

1898

• H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds

1899

• Rhoda Broughton's The Game and the Candle
• H. G. Wells' When the Sleeper Awakes.

1900

• Lord Jim (serialised in Blackwood's), Joseph Conrad
• Rhoda Broughton's Foes in Law
• H. G. Wells' Love and Mr. Lewisham

1901

• H. G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon
• Samuel Butler's Erewhon Revisited
• Ford Maddox Ford's The Inheritors