18 books like The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
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: Married women, Married people, Manners and customs, Domestic fiction
Agnes Grey
In her Introduction to an edition of "Agnes Grey," Barbara A. Suess writes "Bronte provides a portrait of the governess that is as sympathetic as her fictional indictment of the shallow, selfish moneyed class is biting." Anne Bronte relies on her own personal involvement in her duties as a home teacher to bring Agnes Grey to life. Agnes, a rector's daughter, must take employment as a governess to…
Shares: Landlord and tenant, Alcoholism, Married women, Domestic fiction
Vanity Fair
No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry glamour of Regency society, battles - military and domestic - are fought,…
Shares: Married women, Married people, British and irish fiction, England
Pavilion of Women
A los cuarenta años, Madame Wu, esposa de un miembro de una de las dinastías de terratenientes más consideradas de China, abandona voluntariamente la vida matrimonial y busca una concubina para su marido. Su decisión cambia la vida de todos los que la rodean... A las puertas de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, la familia se enfrenta a la encrucijada entre tradición, comunismo y pensamiento occidental,…
Shares: Married women, Married people, Domestic fiction
Man and Wife
On a summer's morning, between thirty and forty years ago, two girls were crying bitterly in the cabin of an East Indian passenger ship, bound outward, from Gravesend to Bombay.
Shares: Married women, Married people, Domestic fiction, British and irish fiction
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: Manners and customs, Domestic fiction, British and irish fiction, England
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
The Law and the Lady
Three years ago, her husband stood accused of murder -- and the verdict that came in from the jury was the Scottish Verdict, Not Proven. The jury had not evidence enough to convict him
-- nor enough to comfortably exonerate him. Eustace could not bear the weight of her discovery; he fled to the continent, to live in anonymity. But Valeria knew her husband, and she loved him. She knew he was…
Shares: Married women, Married people, British and irish fiction, England
John Barleycorn
It all came to me one election day. It was on a warm California afternoon, and I had ridden down into the Valley of the Moon from the ranch to the little village to vote Yes and No to a host of proposed amendments to the Constitution of the State of California. Because of the warmth of the day I had had several drinks before casting my ballot, and divers drinks after casting it. Then I had ridden…
Shares: Alcoholics, Alcoholism, Biography & Memoir
He knew he was right
Widely regarded as one of Trollope's most successful later novels,He Knew He Was Right is a study of marriage and of sexual relationships cast against a background of agitation for women's rights.
Shares: Married people, Domestic fiction, British and irish fiction, England
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: Domestic fiction, British and irish fiction, England, Social life and customs
The peppered moth
"It is 1912 and Bessie Bawtry is a small child living in Breaseborough, a South Yorkshire mining town. Unusually gifted, she sits quietly and studies hard, waiting for the day when she can sit the Cambridge entrance exam and escape the kind of life her ancestors have never even thought to question. Her parents are in awe of her - who is this swan-child, is she a freak? (Where did she get her…
Shares: Manners and customs, British and irish fiction, Social life and customs
How to Be Good
According to her own complex moral calculations, Katie Carr has earned her affair. She's a doctor and her husband David is the self-styled Angriest Man in Holloway. But when David suddenly becomes good - properly, maddeningly, give-away-all-his-money good - Katie's sums no longer add up, and she is forced to ask herself some very hard questions.
Shares: Married women, Married people, Domestic fiction
Castle Rackrent
A politically-charged satire on Anglo-Irish landlords, Castle Rackrent is a critically-acclaimed and thoroughly enjoyable novel. The social commentary critiques not only class but also gender roles, acutely discussing the marginalization of women in the eighteenth century. In Castle Rackrent, published in 1800, the Irish Catholic bourgeoisie rise to power.
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The Sacred and Profane Love Machine
This is a story of different loves; and of how a man may need two women in such a way that he can be happy with neither. Sacred and profane love are related opposites; the one enjoyed renders the other necessary, so that the ever unsatisfied heart swings constantly to and fro.
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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: Manners and customs, Domestic fiction, British and irish fiction, England
The Painted Veil
A story of the beautiful but love-starve Kitty Fane who is forced to accompany her husband to the heart of a cholera epidemic. She is compelled by her awakening conscience to reassess her life and learn how to love.
Shares: Married people, Domestic fiction, British and irish fiction
The Portrait of a Lady
Young American Isabel Archer charms European society, but falls prey to the machinations of a calculating older woman.
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