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Recommendations based on Wives and Daughtersby Elizabeth Gaskell
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North and South
by Elizabeth Gaskell
A tale of two contrasting worlds, exploring the divisions of the industrial revolution.
Nineteen-year-old Margaret Hale has lived for almost 10 years in London with her cousin Edith and her wealthy Aunt Shaw, but when Edith marries Captain Lennox, Margaret happily returns home to the ... (Wikipedia)
Cranford
by Elizabeth Gaskell
A charming portrait of a rural town and the lives of its eccentric inhabitants.
Mary Smith and her friends live in Cranford, a town predominantly inhabited by women. The return of a long-lost brother named Peter is the most dramatic event to occur over the course of the sixteen ... (Goodreads)
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
by Anne Brontë
An exploration of 19th-century gender roles, revealing a woman's struggle for independence.
The novel is divided into three volumes. Part One (Chapters 1 to 15): Gilbert Markham narrates how a mysterious widow, Mrs Helen Graham, arrives at Wildfell Hall, a nearby mansion. A source of ... (Wikipedia)
Mansfield Park
by Jane Austen
Social satire exploring morality and class in 19th century England.
Fanny Price, at age ten, is sent from her impoverished home in Portsmouth to live as one of the family at Mansfield Park, the Northamptonshire country estate of her uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram. There ... (Wikipedia)
Little Dorrit
by Charles Dickens
A tale of injustice, exploring the social and economic inequalities of Victorian England.
The novel begins in Marseilles "thirty years ago" (c. 1826), with the notorious murderer Rigaud telling his prison cellmate John Baptist Cavalletto how he killed his wife, just prior to being ... (Wikipedia)
Vanity Fair
by William Makepeace Thackeray
A story of social climbing and ambition, set against the backdrop of 19th century England.
A novel that chronicles the lives of two women who could not be more different: Becky Sharp, an orphan whose only resources are her vast ambitions, her native wit, and her loose morals; and her ... (Goodreads)
Middlemarch
by George Eliot
A grand narrative of life in a small English town, exploring the lives of its inhabitants.
Middlemarch centres on the lives of residents of Middlemarch, a fictitious Midlands town, from 1829 onwards – the years up to the 1832 Reform Act . The narrative is variably considered to consist of ... (Wikipedia)
Anne of the Island
by L.M. Montgomery
A young woman's journey of self-discovery as she transitions into adulthood, away from home.
Anne leaves Green Gables and her work as a teacher in Avonlea to pursue her original dream (which she gave up in, Anne of Green Gables, ) of taking further education at Redmond College in Nova ... (Wikipedia)
Anne's House of Dreams
by L.M. Montgomery
A young couple's journey to build a life together, overcoming obstacles and finding joy.
The book begins with Anne and Gilbert's wedding, which takes place in the Green Gables orchard. After the wedding, they move to their first home together, which Anne calls their "house of dreams". ... (Wikipedia)
Far From the Madding Crowd
by Thomas Hardy
A pastoral romance of love and redemption, set against the backdrop of 19th century rural England.
An ACE can be found here . Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three ... (Goodreads)
Northanger Abbey
by Jane Austen
A young woman's journey of self-discovery, navigating the complexities of high society.
Seventeen-year-old Catherine Morland is one of ten children of a country clergyman. Although a tomboy in her childhood, by the age of 17 she is "in training for a heroine" and is excessively fond of ... (Wikipedia)
The Scarlet Pimpernel
by Emmuska Orczy
A daring rescue mission of victims of the French Revolution, under the disguise of a mysterious hero.
The Scarlet Pimpernel is set in 1792, during the early stages of the French Revolution . Marguerite St. Just, a beautiful French actress, is the wife of wealthy English fop Sir Percy Blakeney, a ... (Wikipedia)
The Age of Innocence
by Edith Wharton
A romantic drama set in the high society of 19th century New York, exploring the limits of love and longing.
Newland Archer, gentleman lawyer and heir to one of New York City's most illustrious families, happily anticipates his highly desirable marriage to the sheltered and beautiful May Welland. Yet he ... (Wikipedia)
Anne of Avonlea
by L.M. Montgomery
A young girl's coming-of-age in rural Prince Edward Island, full of adventures and misadventures.
Anne is about to start her first term teaching at the Avonlea school, although she will still continue her studies at home with Gilbert, who is teaching at the nearby White Sands School. The book ... (Wikipedia)
Mary Barton
by Elizabeth Gaskell
Social injustice and class divisions explored through the lens of a mill worker’s family.
The novel begins in Manchester, where we are introduced to the Bartons and the Wilsons, two working-class families. John Barton is a questioner of the distribution of wealth and the relations between ... (Wikipedia)
Villette
by Charlotte Brontë
A young woman's journey of self-discovery in a foreign land, overcoming societal constraints.
Villette begins with its famously passive protagonist, Lucy Snowe, age 14, staying at the home of her godmother Mrs. Bretton in "the clean and ancient town of Bretton", in England. Also in residence ... (Wikipedia)
Daniel Deronda
by George Eliot
Story of a man's struggle to reconcile his Jewish identity and the expectations of English society.
Daniel Deronda contains two main strains of plot, united by the title character. The novel begins in late August 1865 , with the meeting of Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth in the fictional town ... (Wikipedia)
Ivanhoe
by Walter Scott
An epic tale of chivalry, heroism and romance set in 12th century England.
For this novel, Scott moved far away from the setting of his own turbulent time. He went back to the late 12th century, and to England rather than the Scottish settings of all his previous novels. He ... (Goodreads)
Cold Comfort Farm
by Stella Gibbons
A young woman moves to the countryside to bring order to the chaotic lives of her relatives.
Following the death of her parents, the book's heroine, Flora Poste, finds she is possessed "of every art and grace save that of earning her own living". She decides to take advantage of the fact ... (Wikipedia)
A Little Princess
by Frances Hodgson Burnett
A young girl's courageous spirit as she overcomes adversity and discovers a life of joy.
Captain Richard Crewe, a wealthy English widower, has been raising his only child, Sara, in India where he is stationed with the British Army. Because the Indian climate is considered too harsh for ... (Wikipedia)
The House of Mirth
by Edith Wharton
A young woman's struggle to navigate New York high society, in pursuit of financial security and true love.
Lily Bart, a beautiful but impoverished socialite, is on her way to a house party at Bellomont, the country home of her best friend, Judy Trenor. Her pressing task is to find a husband with the ... (Wikipedia)
The Way We Live Now
by Anthony Trollope
A satirical tale of greed and corruption, set in the world of high society.
Augustus Melmotte is a financier with a mysterious past. He is rumoured to have Jewish origins, and to be connected to some failed businesses in Vienna. When he moves his business and his family to ... (Wikipedia)
The Forsyte Saga
by John Galsworthy
Epic tale of an upper-class British family, exploring the clash between traditional values and modernity.
John Galsworthy, a Nobel Prize-winning author, chronicles the ebbing social power of the commercial upper-middle-class Forsyte family through three generations, beginning in Victorian London during ... (Goodreads)
I Capture the Castle
by Dodie Smith
An unconventional family living in a crumbling castle navigate life, love, and the pursuit of happiness.
The novel takes place between April and October in a single year in the 1930s. The Mortmain family is genteel, poor, and eccentric. Cassandra's father is a writer suffering from writer's block who ... (Wikipedia)
Agnes Grey
by Anne Brontë
A young governess's struggles to find her place in the world, while teaching and caring for the children of a wealthy family.
Agnes Grey is the daughter of Mr. Grey, a minister of modest means, and Mrs. Grey, a woman who left her wealthy family and married purely out of love. Mr. Grey tries to increase the family's ... (Wikipedia)
Poirot Investigates
by Agatha Christie
Detective Hercule Poirot solves mysteries using his "little grey cells" of logic and reasoning.
First there was the mystery of the film star and the diamond... then came the “suicide” that was murder... the mystery of the absurdly cheap flat...a suspicious death in a locked gun room... a ... (Goodreads)
The Moonstone
by Wilkie Collins
A mystery novel, unraveling the secrets of an ancient Indian diamond.
Colonel Herncastle, an unpleasant former soldier, brings the Moonstone back with him from India where he acquired it by theft and murder during the Siege of Seringapatam . Angry at his family, who ... (Wikipedia)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
by Thomas Hardy
A young woman's struggles against societal expectations, and her journey of resilience and self-realization.
Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141439594 . When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting ... (Goodreads)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
by Betty Smith
A coming of age story set in Brooklyn, depicting a young girl's struggles and growth.
The novel is split into five "books", each covering a different period in the characters' lives. Book One opens in 1912 and introduces 11-year-old Francie Nolan, who lives in the Williamsburg ... (Wikipedia)
Adam Bede
by George Eliot
A carpenter, Adam Bede, falls in love with a beautiful woman, Hetty Sorrel, who is in love with another man. Tragedy ensues.
According to, The Oxford Companion to English Literature, (1967), The novel follows four characters' rural lives in the fictional community of Hayslope—a rural, pastoral, and close-knit community in ... (Wikipedia)
