18 books like Bleak House
Jude the Obscure
Hardy's last work of fiction, Jude the Obscure is also one of his most gloomily fatalistic, depicting the lives of individuals who are trapped by forces beyond their control. Jude Fawley, a poor villager, wants to enter the divinity school at Christminster. Sidetracked by Arabella Donn, an earthy country girl who pretends to be pregnant by him, Jude marries her and is then deserted. He earns a…
Shares: Illegitimate children, Open_syllabus_project, Social life and customs, History
A Particular Eye for Villainy
From "an accomplished veteran" of crime fiction, a Victorian murder mystery featuring a female sleuth and her detective husband (Kirkus Reviews).When Mr. Thomas Tapley is found bludgeoned to death in his sitting room, his neighbor, Inspector Benjamin Ross of Scotland Yard, is immediately summoned.Little is known about the elusive gentleman until Mr. Jonathan Tapley, QC, hears of the news, and the…
Shares: Social conditions, History
Emma
Emma, by Jane Austen, is a novel about youthful hubris and the perils of misconstrued romance. The novel was first published in December 1815. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian-Regency England; she also creates a lively comedy of manners among her characters. Before she began the novel, Austen wrote, "I am going to take a…
Shares: Open_syllabus_project, Young women, Classics, Social life and customs
Mr. Scarborough's Family
It will be necessary, for the purpose of my story, that I shall go back more than once from the point at which it begins, so that I may explain with the least amount of awkwardness the things as they occurred, which led up to the incidents that I am about to tell; and I may as well say that these first four chapters of the book - though they may be thought to be the most interesting of them all…
Shares: Inheritance and succession, Social life and customs, Classic Literature
Hard Times
Dickens scathing portrait of Victorian industrial society and its misapplied utilitarian philosophy, Hard Times features schoolmaster Thomas Gradgrind, one of his most richly dimensional, memorable characters. Filled with the details and wonders of small-town life, it is also a daring novel of ideas and ultimately, a celebration of love, hope, and limitless possibilities of the imagination.
Shares: Social problems, Social conditions, Social life and customs, History
Детство; Отрочество; Юность
Written from 1852 to 1856, this autobiographical novel was Tolstoy's first publication. The early life of Nikolai, the son of wealthy landowner in Russia, is fully explored, slowly revealing this young boy's inner mind, relationships, and social standing. As he describes his tutor, angelic mother, aloof father, worldly brother, and later his moralistic friend, Nikolai displays a mind given to…
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Howards End
Howards End is a novel by E. M. Forster about social conventions, codes of conduct and relationships in turn-of-the-century England. A strong-willed and intelligent woman refuses to allow the pretensions of her husband's smug English family to ruin her life. Howards End is considered by some to be Forster's masterpiece
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American notes
Description of a trip by the famous British novelist Charles Dickens to the U.S. in the early 1840s, which included travel through the Great Lakes states. The first and last portions of the book are accounts of his travel in the east. There are also chapters on slavery and his voyage back to England. Chapter headings for the portion on western travel are:
-From Pittsburg to Cincinnati in a…
Shares: English Christmas stories, Social life and customs, History
The dead secret
The Dead Secret is a novel published by Wilkie Collins, first in 1857 as a series in Charles Dickens Household Words weekly magazine and later the same year as a book. Much like his later novel The Woman in White (1860), it can be considered one of the earliest example of a sensation novel, as it contains themes of illegitimacy, blackmail, and false identity.
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A Passage to India
When Adela Quested and her elderly companion Mrs Moore arrive in the Indian town of Chandrapore, they quickly feel trapped by its insular and prejudiced 'Anglo-Indian' community. Determined to escape the parochial English enclave and explore the 'real India', they seek the guidance of the charming and mercurial Dr Aziz, a cultivated Indian Muslim. But a mysterious incident occurs while they are…
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The Weaver's Inheritance
Roger the Chapman series #8
Chapman 08 - The long-lost son of a wealthy weaver, thought murdered six years before, has reappeared, to the joy of the old man but to the indignation of Alison Burnett, who refuses to believe the stranger is her brother. When she is disinherited she appeals to Roger the Chapman to prove her suspicions right.
Shares: Inheritance and succession, Social life and customs, History
Lost Paradise
"Pitcairn Island - remote and wild in the South Pacific, a place of towering cliffs and lashing surf - is home to descendants of Fletcher Christian and the Mutiny on the Bounty crew, who fled there with a group of Tahitian maidens after deposing their captain, William Bligh, and seizing his ship in 1789." "In 2000, police descended on the British territorya lump of volcanic rock hundreds of miles…
Shares: Social problems, Social conditions, History
Women in Love
Dark, but filled with bright genius, Women in Love is a prophetic masterpiece steeped in eroticism, filled with perceptions about sexual power and obsession that have proven to be timeless and true.
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Washington Square
With a new afterword by Michael CunninghamWhat Catherine Sloper lacks in brains and beauty, she makes up for by being "very good." The handsome Morris Townsend would do anything to win her hand-even if it means pretending that he loves the homely ingenue, and cares nothing for her opulent wealth.
Throughout time, the women of the world always had limited rights when it came to anything. You…
Shares: Inheritance and succession, Young women, Classics, Classic Literature
Анна Каренина
Described by William Faulkner as the best novel ever written and by Fyodor Dostoevsky as “flawless,” Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and thereby exposes herself to the hypocrisies of society. Set against a vast and richly textured canvas of…
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20 Years at Hull House
Jane Addams's narrative of life in an immigrant urban neighborhood provides students with an introduction to the issues of the Progressive era and the tenets of social activism. This new teaching edition reduces Addams's original text by about 35 percent, trimming illustrative detail to focus on the ideological underpinnings of the original work. The author sketches a brief biographical portrait…
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The House of Mirth
Beautiful, intelligent, and hopelessly addicted to luxury, Lily Bart is the heroine of this Wharton masterpiece. But it is her very taste and moral sensibility that render her unfit for survival in this world.
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East of Eden
Set in the rich farmland of the Salinas Valley, California, this powerful, often brutal novel, follows the interwined destinies of two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - whose generations hopelessly re-enact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Here Steinbeck created some of his most memorable characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of…
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