With all my precious books now packed away ready to be transported to their new home – only a few hundred yards or so from their current one – my thoughts are decidedly switching to where and how they will be displayed on shelves yet to be constructed.

And for some of them, in a house built around the times in which they were written.

Which got me thinking.

My ‘new’ home was, I am reliably informed by a local history book I found in the library, built in 1880. At least I am assuming the information is reliable as the entry is very detailed, defining developer, builders, architects et al.

So I began to wonder what novels were published in that year. Or in near enough years to satisfy my curiosity.

The middle and latter years of the 19th century were, of course, transformative for fiction with such a wealth of authors both sides of the Atlantic.

And did you know – because I certainly didn’t – that the phrase cliffhanger first came into existence as a result of Thomas Hardy’s novel, A Pair of Blue Eyes, serialised between autumn 1872 and summer 1873 and published as a book later that year? One of the protagonists finds himself literally clinging onto a coastal cliff …and the serial readers had to wait a week or so to find out what happened to him – hence the term ‘cliffhanger’ came into being!

But back to 1880.

And I am delighted to find out that one of my favourite novels, Henry James’ Washington Square was published on December 1st of that year. It was swiftly followed by another much-admired novel, A Portrait of a Lady in January 1881.

That date also saw Hardy’s The Trumpet Major and, in children’s fiction, Heidi which surprised me as I had not realised it was a Victorian novel.

Moving on just a little, 1883 saw the publication of a novel by R.D. Blackmore. I was only aware of her Lorna Doone novel but evidently she wrote Mary Anerley which for some reason does not seem to have gained attention over the years. Treasure Island, a book I struggled to finish as compulsory reading at school – possibly never did finish it – was also published that year.

1886 saw Hardy’s magnificent, The Mayor of Casterbridge and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, R.L. Stevenson’s novel which I have never enjoyed but can value as having led to a shorthand for contradictory human behaviour.

Novels contribute so much to our understanding of human nature and it is interesting that in the same year of Hardy’s poignant and heart-rending tale of a man who has to be viewed as a tragic hero, Stevenson’s novella was offering an insight into the paradoxes of behaviour.

And just before the decade closed, Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat was published in 1889 – which was a surprise to me as I would have placed it as later – more Edwardian at least than Victorian.

Of course great novels were being produced in other places too.

But I’m afraid my knowledge of Zola and Dostoevsky is too limited (if not non-existent!) to expand on the likes of Zola and The Brothers Karamazov, the latter published, incidentally, in 1880. Then there was Mark Twain with Huckleberry Finn – another novel that I have some but very scant knowledge about and can’t see myself revisiting any time soon.

Middlemarch, George Eliot’s wonderful novel, had only appeared some eight years earlier, serialised between 1871 to 1872, so was still a relatively new book in 1880.

All in all, there is a cornucopia of wonderful authors and novels that the inhabitants of my next home could have been reading in the 1880s as they settled into their brand new house.

But by what light would they have been reading? Candles? Gaslight?

Now there’s another thought – and it will make me appreciate switching on efficient table lamps at will to settle down to re-read Hardy or James or Eliot on a winter’s night by my new fireside -who knows – it might even make me venture into Zola and Dostoevsky!