From Henry Fielding’s The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749) to Moby Dick (1851) by Herman Melville, the novel contains many allusions to the classic novels of the 18th and 19th centuries, forming a key motif that illustrates The Transformative Power of Literature. Thomas particularly loves the works of Charles Dickens, praising the fact that Dickens has no place in his books for self-pity, with his plots reminding characters that life can be turned around and reinvented. What attracts Thomas and Jimmy to these particular novels is their portrait of the formation of the self. In Tom Jones, a “foundling” or orphan finds himself through adventures, while in Jane Eyre, Jane’s experiences lead her to accept her unique, solitary nature and refusal to compromise.

Thomas also loves the bildungsroman, the “novel-of-formation,” because of its clear structure and decisive ends. It is a running joke in the novel that Thomas dislikes modernism, with its stream-of-consciousness style and open endings. The work of Dickens, on the other hand, is plotted intricately, and he “intends to move you emotionally, more than he cares about persuading you intellectually” (138) as Thomas tells Connie. Jimmy comes to hold similar views about the novel, all his works focusing on plot. Given the novel’s metafictional bent, the praise of the Victorian novel can be a nod at Irving’s own work, with many of his novels described as “Dickensian.” The emphasis on the classic novel also highlights what Queen Esther has in common with them—foundlings or orphans, a young protagonist trying to find themselves, and the discovery of the self.