When authors refer to other great works, people, and events, it’s usually not accidental. Put on your super-sleuth hat and figure out why.
Literature and Philosophy
- Beaumont and Fletcher, The Maid's Tragedy (epigraph to Chapter 1)
- Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (epigraph to Chapter 2)
- Sir Humphry Davy, Agricultural Chemistry (1.2.1)
- Adam Smith (1.2.8)
- Robert Southey, Peninsular War (1.2.8)
- John Locke (1.2.32)
- John Milton, Paradise Lost (epigraph to Chapter 3)
- Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (1.3.2, epigraph to Chapter 12, epigraph to Chapter 21, epigraph to Chapter 50, epigraph to Chapter 65)
- France Elizabeth King, Female Scripture Characters
- Virgil, The Aeneid (epigraph to Chapter 4)
- John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress (1.4.24, epigraph to Chapter 79, epigraph to Chapter 85)
- Thomas de Quincey, 1.10.1
- Ben Jonson (epigraph to Chapter 11)
- William Shakespeare (2.14.64)
- John Fielding (2.15.1)
- Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels (2.15.3)
- Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea (2.15.3)
- the Book of Isaiah in the Old Testament of the Bible (2.15.3, 5.53.1)
- Sir Charles Sedley (epigraph to Chapter 16)
- Robert Brown, Microscopic Observations on the Pollen of Plants (2.17.34)
- Alexander Pope, Essay on Man (2.18.7)
- Dante, Purgatorio (epigraph to Chapter 19, 4.37.18)
- William Shakespeare, Sonnets (epigraph to Chapter 24, 3.27.4, epigraph to Chapter 58, epigraph to Chapter 82)
- William Blake, Songs of Experience (epigraph to Chapter 25)
- William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida (epigraph to Chapter 26)
- Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (3.28.20, epigraph to Chapter 37)
- Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield (epigraph to Chapter 29, 6.57.39)
- Pascal (epigraph to Chapter 30)
- Smollett, Roderick Random and Humphry Clinker (3.30.4)
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest (epigraph to Chapter 32)
- George Borrow, 3.32.6
- Sir Walter Scott, Anne of Geirstein (3.32.43), Ivanhoe (3.32.49)
- William Shakespeare, Henry VI (epigraph to Chapter 33)
- Regnard, Le Légataire Universel (epigraph to Chapter 35)
- Daniel, Tragedy of Philotas (epigraph to Chapter 36)
- Percy Bysshe Shelley (4.37.13)
- Petrarch (4.37.18)
- Guizot (epigraph to Chapter 38)
- Horace (4.38.40)
- John Donne (epigraph to Chapter 39, epigraph to Chapter 83)
- Homer (4.39.3)
- William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (epigraph to Chapter 41)
- William Shakespeare, Henry VIII, Epigraph to Chapter 42
- Sir Thomas Brown, Pseudodoxia Epidemica (epigraph to Chapter 45)
- Michael Drayton (5.47.3)
- Keble, Christian Year (5.48.2)
- William Wordsworth (epigraph to Chapter 52, epigraph to Chapter 80)
- Dante, La Vita Nuova (4.37.18, epigraph to Chapter 54)
- Sir Henry Wotton (epigraph to Chapter 56)
- Justice Shallow (epigraph to Chapter 60)
- Rasselas (epigraph to Chapter 61)
- Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveler (epigraph to Chapter 63)
- William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (epigraph to Chapter 66, epigraph to Chapter 71)
- Book of Tobit: Marriage Prayer (epigraph to Chapter 74)
- Victor Hugo, L'Homme qui rit (epigraph to Chapter 86)
- Plutarch (8.Finale.5)
Historical
- Saint Theresa (Prelude, Finale)
- The Protestant Reformation (1.2.18)
- Luddite uprisings ("machine-breaking and rick-burning") (1.3.7)
- Robert Peel (1.1.6, 1.4.40, 4.37.1, 4.38.7)
- Henry IV of France (1.7.55, 1.9.31)
- Rembrandt (1.12.68)
- King James (2.15.5)
- Haydn (2.16.40)
- George the Third (2.17.2)
- Saint Thomas Aquinas (2.22.18)
- Santa Clara (2.22.31)
- Cincinnatus (3.24.14)
- The "Catholic Question" (4.37.1)
- Charles James Fox (4.37.1)
- The First Reform Bill (1832) (4.39.59, 5.47.13, 5.51.7, 6.56.7)
- Burke and Hare (5.45.2)
- The railroad (6.56.7)
- Napoleon Bonaparte (the "Corsican") (7.71.20)