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Recommendations based on Vanity Fairby William Makepeace Thackeray
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
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)
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)
The Portrait of a Lady
by Henry James
A young woman's journey of self-discovery, standing up to society's expectations.
Isabel Archer, from Albany, New York , is invited by her maternal aunt, Lydia Touchett, to visit Lydia's rich husband, Daniel, at his estate near London, following the death of Isabel's father. ... (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)
The Woman in White
by Wilkie Collins
A thrilling mystery of secrets and hidden identities, with a hero on a quest for the truth.
Walter Hartright, a young art teacher, encounters and gives directions to a mysterious and distressed woman dressed entirely in white, lost in London; he is later informed by policemen that she has ... (Wikipedia)
Bleak House
by Charles Dickens
A social commentary on the English legal system, exploring themes of inequality, injustice and corruption.
Bleak House opens in the twilight of foggy London, where fog grips the city most densely in the Court of Chancery. The obscure case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, in which an inheritance is gradually ... (Goodreads)
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy
Epic tale of war, peace, and love, focusing on the lives of five aristocratic families.
The novel begins in July 1805 in Saint Petersburg , at a soirée given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer—the maid of honour and confidante to the dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna . Many of the main characters ... (Wikipedia)
David Copperfield
by Charles Dickens
A rags-to-riches story of a young boy's adventures, trials, and tribulations.
David Copperfield is the story of a young man's adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist. Among the gloriously ... (Goodreads)
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)
The Red and the Black
by Stendhal
A young man's ambitious rise in 19th century French society, as he navigates through its politics and passions.
In two volumes,, The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of the 19th Century, tells the story of Julien Sorel's life in France's rigid social structure restored after the disruptions of the French ... (Wikipedia)
Jude the Obscure
by Thomas Hardy
A tale of struggle and sorrow for a poor, uneducated man amid the rigid conventions of Victorian England.
The novel tells the story of Jude Fawley, who lives in a village in southern England (part of Hardy's fictional county of Wessex ), who yearns to be a scholar at "Christminster", a city modelled on ... (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)
Wives and Daughters
by Elizabeth Gaskell
A story of growth, love, and values in a rural English village.
The novel opens with young Molly Gibson, who has been raised by her widowed father, Dr. Gibson. During a visit to the local aristocratic 'great house' of Lord and Lady Cumnor, Molly loses her way in ... (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)
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 Brothers Karamazov
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A philosophical exploration of morality, faith, and family dynamics among a group of brothers.
The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental” Fyodor Pavlovich ... (Goodreads)
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)
Don Quixote
by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
An aging knight's adventures and misadventures, filled with chivalry, honor, and satire.
Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading chivalric romances that he determines to become a knight-errant himself. In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, his exploits blossom in ... (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)
Mrs. Dalloway
by Virginia Woolf
A day in the life of a high-society woman, delving into her inner thoughts and feelings.
Clarissa Dalloway goes around London in the morning, getting ready to host a party that evening. The nice day reminds her of her youth spent in the countryside in Bourton and makes her wonder about ... (Wikipedia)
Nostromo
by Joseph Conrad
A gripping tale of greed and political intrigue in a fictional South American country.
Nostromo is set in the South American country of Costaguana, and more specifically in that country's Occidental Province and its port city of Sulaco. Though Costaguana is a fictional nation, its ... (Wikipedia)
The Good Soldier
by Ford Madox Ford
A chronicle of the lives of two couples, weaving together tragedy, deceit, and self-deception.
The Good Soldier is narrated by the character John Dowell, half of one of the couples whose dissolving relationships form the subject of the novel. Dowell tells the story of those dissolutions, plus ... (Wikipedia)
A Room with a View
by E.M. Forster
A young woman's exploration of love, morality, and societal norms in Edwardian England.
The novel is set in the early 1900s as upper-middle-class English women are beginning to lead more independent, adventurous lives. In the first part, Miss Lucy Honeychurch is touring Italy with her ... (Wikipedia)
A Passage to India
by E.M. Forster
Exploring imperial tensions between colonial India and Britain in the early 20th century.
A young British schoolmistress, Adela Quested, and her elderly friend, Mrs. Moore, visit the fictional city of Chandrapore, British India . Adela is to decide if she wants to marry Mrs. Moore's son, ... (Wikipedia)
The Canterbury Tales
by Geoffrey Chaucer
A collection of stories told by a group of pilgrims on a journey to Canterbury.
The procession that crosses Chaucer's pages is as full of life and as richly textured as a medieval tapestry. The Knight, the Miller, the Friar, the Squire, the Prioress, the Wife of Bath, and others ... (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)
Our Mutual Friend
by Charles Dickens
A satirical novel about the corrupt society of Victorian England, where money and greed rule all.
Having made his fortune from London's rubbish, a rich misanthropic miser dies, estranged from all except his faithful employees Mr and Mrs Boffin. By his will, his fortune goes to his estranged son ... (Wikipedia)
The Three Musketeers
by Alexandre Dumas
An adventurous tale of friendship, courage, and battle in 17th century France.
In 1625 France, d'Artagnan leaves his family in Gascony and travels to Paris to join the Musketeers of the Guard . At a house in Meung-sur-Loire , an older man derides d'Artagnan's horse. Insulted, ... (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)
The Importance of Being Earnest
by Oscar Wilde
A lighthearted comedy of manners, full of witty dialogue and satirizing Victorian society.
Oscar Wilde's madcap farce about mistaken identities, secret engagements, and lovers entanglements still delights readers more than a century after its 1895 publication and premiere performance. The ... (Goodreads)
