English literature of the 19th century was a unique environment in which a whole galaxy of talented writers and poets appeared. Despite the fact that patriarchal orders reigned in literature, as well as in society, the work of the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen and other female authors managed to find a way to the reader and prepare him for the future feminist turn in the literature of modernism. The faces of this era were its talented, enlightened and strong representatives, to whom the book of the literary critic A. Livergant is dedicated. It includes three essays: “Unrivaled Jane” about Jane Austen, “The House in the Cemetery” about Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell Brontë, and “The Victorian Sibyl” about Mary Ann Evans, who wrote under the pseudonym George Eliot. In each of them, the author reflects on the creativity and fate of the heroines, immersing their biographies in a detailed historical context. Alexander Livergant is a candidate of art history, philologist, translator, editor-in-chief of the journal “Foreign Literature”. Author of numerous works on English and American literature.