18 books like Mr. Scarborough's Family
Orley Farm
When Joseph Mason of Groby Park, Yorkshire, died, he left his estate to his family. A codicil to his will, however, left Orley Farm (near London) to his much younger second wife and infant son. The will and the codicil were in her handwriting, and there were three witnesses, one of whom was no longer alive. A bitterly fought court case confirmed the codicil.
Twenty years pass. Lady Mason lives…
Shares: Inheritance and succession, Domestic fiction, British and irish fiction, England
The Ravenscar Dynasty
Devastated by the deaths of three family members in a suspicious fire, young Edward Deravenel battles his cousin for control of a business empire that was usurped from his branch of the family sixty years earlier.
Shares: Inheritance and succession, Domestic fiction, England
Clayhanger
This coming-of-age story set in the Midlands of Victorian England follows Edwin Clayhanger as he leaves school, takes over the family business and falls in love. Bennett wrote it in 1910 at the Royal Albion Hotel, Brighton, and in Lausanne. Edwin Clayhanger's father, Darius, has risen from an extremely poor background, which Bennett repeatedly returns to, to become a prominent printer in Bursley.…
Shares: Fathers and sons, British and irish fiction, England, Social life and customs
The Newcomes
The Newcomes is Thackeray's most essentially 'Victorian' novel, generous in its proportions, sharp in its criticism of the moral convolutions of the age, and encyclopaedic in its reference. Set in the 1830s and 1840s, a period of rapid change and of political and economic development, the novel considers the fortunes and misfortunes of a 'most respectable' extended middle-class family. The action…
Shares: Domestic fiction, British and irish fiction, England, Social life and customs
Cousin Henry
When the Squire of Llanfeare dies, his nephew Henry inherits the estate. Rumours are rife that the Squire had named his niece Isabel as his heir, and that Henry is an impostor. Mr Apjohn, the family lawyer, takes it upon himself to investigate.
Shares: Inheritance and succession, Domestic fiction, British and irish fiction, Social life and customs
Armadale
Cuando el anciano Allan Armadale escribe su terrible confesión en el lecho de muerte, no puede ni imaginarse las repercusiones que tendrá esa carta cuando su hijo recién nacido la lea años después. Por segunda vez, dos hombres con el mismo nombre y el mismo apellido se verán implicados en la prosecución de una herencia que parece maldita. Mientras tanto, se suceden las sigilosas intrigas de Lydia…
Shares: Fathers and sons, British and irish fiction, England, Social life and customs
Basil
Basil is the second novel written in 1852 by the British author Wilkie Collins, after Antonina.
Shares: Inheritance and succession, Fathers and sons, British and irish fiction, Classic Literature
The uncommercial traveller
A collection of seventeen sketches which grew out of Dickens' insomnia. He took long walks through London at night and his observations resulted in these sketches.
Shares: British and irish fiction, Social life and customs, Classic Literature
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, England, Social life and customs
Weir of Hermiston
In Stevenson's tale of father - son confrontation, the father, Adam Weir, is modelled on Lord Braxfield, the eighteenth-century 'hanging judge'. Weir, a 'risen man' who has married a wealthy but weak woman, is both feared and respected, not least by his own son, Archie. At a public hanging, Archie speaks out against capital punishment, knowing that it was his own father who sentenced the man.
He…
Shares: Fathers and sons, Domestic fiction, British and irish fiction, Social life and customs
The Guilty River
During his lifetime, British fiction writer Wilkie Collins came to rival Charles Dickens in popularity and critical acclaim. Like Dickens, Collins often gravitated toward characters who overcame significant obstacles to learn important life lessons. The novella The Guilty River continues in this vein, recounting an against-all-odds love affair that blossoms between a couple that each…
Shares: British and irish fiction, Classic Literature
The Black Robe
The Black Robe is an 1881 partially-epistolary novel by famed English writer, Wilkie Collins. The book, which relates the misadventures of one "Lewis Romayne", is noted for its anti-Catholic lens.
Shares: British and irish fiction, England, Classic Literature
The dynamiter
All fourteen-year-old Robbie Hendrick ever wanted was a family. Yet as another Mississippi summer begins, his wayward mother has run off again fearing a breakdown and he's left to burn the days caring for his half brother, Fess. As the deep days and nights pass without her return and with older brother Lucas dangerously in their lives again, Robbie must face the fact that his dream of a family…
Shares: British and irish fiction, Classic Literature
No name
No Name is a 19th-century novel by the master of sensation fiction, Wilkie Collins. A country gentleman is killed in an accident and his wife dies shortly after him. The blow is double for their daughters, who discover that they were born before their parents were married. Their sudden illegitimacy robs them of their inheritance and their accustomed place in society.
Shares: British and irish fiction, England, Social life and customs, Classic Literature
Amelia
Against her mother's wishes, Amelia marries Captain William Booth, a young army officer, and runs away to London. William is unjustly imprisoned in Newgate, and is subsequently seduced by Miss Matthews. Amelia stays faithful to her husband and forgives his transgression, but William soon draws them into trouble again as he accrues gambling debts trying to lift the couple out of poverty.
Shares: Domestic fiction, British and irish fiction, England, Social life and customs
Within the tides
In the private editorial office of the principal newspaper in a great colonial city two men were talking. They were both young. The stouter of the two, fair, and with more of an urban look about him, was the editor and part-owner of the important newspaper.
Shares: British and irish fiction, Classic Literature
The small house at Allington
The Chronicles of Barsetshire, Book 5: The Small House at Allington
The Small House at Allington introduces Trollope's most charming heroine, the betwitching Lily Dale, onto the Barsetshire scene. She so endeared herself to readers of the Cornhill Magazine, where A Small House was first published in serial form, that Trollope was bombarded by letters begging him to marry her to her lifelong…
Shares: Domestic fiction, British and irish fiction, England, Social life and customs
The Paradise Mystery
American tourists, sure appreciators of all that is ancient and picturesque in England, invariably come to a halt, holding their breath in a sudden catch of wonder, as they pass through the half-ruinous gateway which admits to the Close of Wrychester. Nowhere else in England is there a fairer prospect of old-world peace. There before their eyes, set in the centre of a great green sward, fringed…
Shares: England, Classic Literature