<P> Robert Browning (1812--89) and Alfred Tennyson (1809--92) were Victorian England's most famous poets, though more recent taste has tended to prefer the poetry of Thomas Hardy, who, though he wrote poetry throughout his life, did not publish a collection until 1898, as well as that of Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844--89), whose poetry was published posthumously in 1918 . Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837--1909) is also considered an important literary figure of the period, especially his poems and critical writings . Early poetry of W.B. Yeats was also published in Victoria's reign . With regard to the theatre it was not until the last decades of the nineteenth century that any significant works were produced . This began with Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas, from the 1870s, various plays of George Bernard Shaw (1856--1950) in the 1890s, and Oscar Wilde's (1854--1900) The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895 . </P> <P> Charles Dickens is the most famous Victorian novelist . Extraordinarily popular in his day with his characters taking on a life of their own beyond the page; Dickens is still one of the most popular and read authors of the world . His first novel, The Pickwick Papers (1836--37) written when he was twenty - five, was an overnight success, and all his subsequent works sold extremely well . The comedy of his first novel has a satirical edge and this pervades his writing . Dickens worked diligently and prolifically to produce the entertaining writing that the public wanted, but also to offer commentary on social problems and the plight of the poor and oppressed . His most important works include Oliver Twist (1837--39), Nicholas Nickleby (1838--39), A Christmas Carol (1843), Dombey and Son (1846--48), David Copperfield (1849--50), Bleak House (1852--53), Little Dorrit (1855--57), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), and Great Expectations (1860--61). There is a gradual trend in his fiction towards darker themes which mirrors a tendency in much of the writing of the 19th century . </P> <P> William Thackeray was Dickens' great rival in the first half of Queen Victoria's reign . With a similar style but a slightly more detached, acerbic and barbed satirical view of his characters, he also tended to depict a more middle class society than Dickens did . He is best known for his novel Vanity Fair (1848), subtitled A Novel without a Hero, which is an example of a form popular in Victorian literature: a historical novel in which recent history is depicted . </P> <P> Anne, Charlotte and Emily Brontë produced notable works of the period, although these were not immediately appreciated by Victorian critics . Wuthering Heights (1847), Emily's only work, is an example of Gothic Romanticism from a woman's point of view, which examines class, myth, and gender . Jane Eyre (1847), by her sister Charlotte, is another major nineteenth century novel that has gothic themes . Anne's second novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), written in realistic rather than romantic style, is mainly considered to be the first sustained feminist novel . </P>

Write a note on the victorian prose writers