I've been looking around, and it looks like there are several books by Martin J. S. Rudwick that all deal with the geological revolution of the 19th century: Bursting the Limits of Time, Earth's Deep History, Worlds Before Adam, and several more.
I was wondering if anyone here has read them and has a good idea of where they overlap/diverge, or if there's some other work out there that I should look at. Thoroughness would definitely be a plus.
You could go straight to the source and read 19th century geology books. You might look at Alfred Wegener's work, he proposed the continental drift theory (though I think this was in the 1910s, not the 19th century). Two other big names would be William Buckland, who helped propose the glaciation theory, and Adam Sedgwick, who helped establish a more thorough geologic timescale. /r/geology might have a better answer for you.