Madame Bovary was Gustave Flaubert's debut novel and wildly controversial upon its initial publication. Flaubert's novel tells the tale of a doctor's wife who conducts a number of scandalous affairs. While the plot was simple and straightforward, the book was filled with small patterns and perfectly constructed sentences, fitting Flaubert's quest to find "le mot juste," or the perfect word.

Gothic fiction was a development of the Romantic movement, and relied on a Gothic castle setting, horror elements, and sweeping plots. All of those features are present in all of the answer choices, except for Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. While Dickens was influenced by Gothic fiction, his work departed from it in focusing on everyday people's lives, and using almost no horror elements.

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, published in 1876, details the life of a young boy growing up on the Mississippi River. At one point, Tom Sawyer and his friend Huckleberry Finn run off and make the town think they are dead, which leads to Tom witnessing his own funeral. Tom Sawyer also appears in Twain's 1884 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The Brothers Karamazov took Fyodor Dostoevsky over two years to write, and he intended the massive work as the first in a series, but he died four months after its publication. The novel concerns the Karamazov family, led by patriarch Fyodor Karamazov and his three sons of young adult age, the hotheaded Dmitri, the rational Ivan, and the faithful Alexei. Philosophical and emotional conflicts drive the plot and themes of the lengthy novel.

The 1895 novel, The Red Badge of Courage, was Stephen Crane's second novel, but his first success, making him a literary celebrity at the age of 24. Crane was inspired to write a tale of the Civil War thirty years after the end of the conflict, after reading tales of battles from veterans. Crane thought the journalistic reports did not convey what it was like psychologically to be in war, and so he crafted his story about a soldier by interviewing a host of Civil War veterans about their experiences.

Jane Austen's Emma, published in 1815, deals with a genteel young woman dealing with romantic intrigues in Regency-era England. What sets Emma apart is its focus on its main character's foibles in attempting to play matchmaker with everyone she knows. Using her typical wit and satire, Austen portrays Emma's headstrong attitude getting in the way of her own life.

Both Anna Karenina and War and Peace were written by Leo Tolstoy in the mid-nineteenth century.

Sherlock Holmes was an instant hit as soon as the detective was introduced in the late nineteenth century in serialized stories. The detective's creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, actually thought the Holmes stories would be easily forgotten and that his legacy would be built on more serious pieces of literature. Holmes was so well loved for his deductive reasoning, use of modern technology, and investigative work caused Conan Doyle to bring him back to life after killing him in a story.

All of the other answer options were influential British novelists of the 19th century, except for James Joyce, who wrote exclusively in the early 20th century.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) was a Russian author of short fiction and novels. His works include everything on the list except The Cherry Orchard (1904) which was the last play written by Anton Chekov.

Across Five Aprils was published in 1964 and written by Irene Hunt. The Killer Angels was published in 1974 and written by Michael Shaara. Gone With the Wind was published in 1936 and written by Margaret Mitchell. Shiloh was published in 1952 and written by Shelby Foote. Stephen Crane published The Red Badge of Courage in 1895.