Victorian Pilgrimage: Sacred-Secular Dualism in the Novels of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, and George Eliot argues that Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, and George Eliot are foremost among nineteenth-century novelists to explore the pilgrimage motif, a major preoccupation of the Victorian imagination. Drawing upon their primary sources of the journey archetype-the King James Bible, The Pilgrim's Progress, and popular hymns-they reveal in their work the significance of the religious impetus, which in their treatment is neither narrowly moralistic nor conformist. Recognizing the...