Coward, possibly, digesting beginning of Victorian literary work (5)
I believe the answer is:
novel
'literary work' is the definition.
(novel is a kind of literary work)
'coward possibly digesting beginning of victorian' is the wordplay.
'coward possibly' becomes 'noel' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'digesting' indicates putting letters inside (inserted letters are eaten or ingested).
'beginning of' suggests taking the first letters.
The first letter of 'victorian' is 'v'.
'noel' placed around 'v' is 'NOVEL'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for novel that I've seen before include "story" , "New and intriguing" , "Volume of prose fiction" , "work of Dickens?" , "Paperback" .)