Books like The way we live now by Anthony Trollope

Charles Dickens’ classic bildungsroman follows an orphan named Pip as he grows from humble beginnings in Kent to London society, encountering wealth, poverty, love, and moral triumph.

A Christmas Carol is Charles Dickens’ allegorical novella about Ebenezer Scrooge, whose miserly ways are transformed through visits from Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future.

Candide: A Tale of Conviviality and Optimism in a Wretched World

Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens’s 1837-39 social novel, follows an orphan raised in a workhouse who flees to London, joins a gang of pickpockets, and uncovers family secrets while exposing child labour and exploitation.

A novel about Emma Woodhouse, a young woman's struggles with matchmaking, misplaced pride, and the dangers of meddling in others' lives in 18th-century England.

In Dickens’s sweeping novel, the protracted Jarndyce and Jarndyce case in the Court of Chancery pulls together a disparate cast— from heirs torn by legal costs to a mysterious ward, a cunning lawyer, and a destitute street sweeper— exposing London’s social decay.

A coming‑of‑age narrative set in 19th‑century England, following young David Copperfield as he navigates orphanhood, hardship and society’s social hierarchies.

In the cathedral town of Barchester, the warden of an almshouse battles a reformer's campaign and his own family's turmoil, offering a sly satire of Church life and the clash between public moral crusades and private suffering.

A comic travelogue following the Pickwick Club as they journey across England, observing and humorously critiquing social customs, inns, and the everyday lives of their fellow travelers.

Written in debtor's prison in 1784, Memoirs of Fanny Hill is the first modern English erotic novel that follows a young woman forced into prostitution by poverty, who navigates love, betrayal, and personal growth to find her own ending.

A satiric masterpiece by Charles Dickens, *Our Mutual Friend* explores the themes of money, poverty, and social change in 19th-century London.

Evelina is a comic novel of manners that follows a young London debutante as she navigates the social world of 18th‑century England, learning wit, confidence, and the subtleties of love.

Kate Croy, a young American woman in London, schemes to secure a future with the amateur financier Merton Densher by courting the wealthy, ill Milly Theale; her plan highlights ambition, love, and tragedy.

In Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire saga, Dr. Thorne’s orphaned niece Mary faces social exile, while her sweetheart Frank, constrained by family duty, pursues another bride. The story ends with family fortunes and affections reevaluated.

Barchester Towers, the second novel of Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire series, follows the clash of ambition, love and clerical politics in the cathedral city of Barchester.

Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit follows William Dorrit, jailed for debt, and his daughter Amy—or Little Dorrit—through their rise from poverty to wealth amid 19th‑century London life.

A foundling named Tom Jones is raised by a benevolent landowner, growing into a kind-hearted young man whose love affair with a well-born daughter sparks class conflict. The novel, one of the first English-language works, explores themes of prostitution and promiscuity.

Charles Dickens’ Dombey and Son follows the proud industrialist Paul Dombey and his family, exposing how commercial ambition can corrupt personal bonds while hinting at redemption through love.

Widowed Duke Plantagenet Palliser struggles to support his three adult children amid gambling debts, forbidden love, and generational conflict, learning that parents can also learn from their children.

Reads like prequel to Suite Francaise, but is a perfect novel in its own right - a gripping story of family life, of money and love, set against the backdrop of France in two terrible world wars.In haunting ways this wonderful, compelling novel prefigures Suite Francaise and some of the themes of Nemirovsky's great unfinished sequence of novels. All Our Worldly Goods, though, is complete, and exquisitely so – a perfect novel in its own right. First published in France in 1947, after the author's death, it is a gripping story of family life and starcrossed lovers, of money and greed, set against the backdrop of France from 1911 to 1940 between two terrible wars.Pierre and Agnes marry for love against the wishes of his parents and the family patriarch, the tyrannical industrialist Julien Hardelot, provoking a family feud which cascades down the generations. This is Balzac or The Forsyte Saga on a smaller, more intimate scale, the bourgeoisie observed close-up with Nemirovsky's characteristically sly humour and clear-eyed compassion. Full of drama and heartbreak, telling observation of the devastating effects of two wars on a small town and an industrial family, this is Nemirovsky at the height of her powers. The exodus and flow of refugee humanity through the town in both wars foreshadows Suite Francaise, but differently, because this is Northern France, near the Somme, and the town itself is twice razed. Taut, evocative and beautifully paced, the novel points up with heartbreaking detail and clarity how close were those two wars, how history repeated itself, tragically, shockingly... It opens in the Edwardian era, on a fashionable Normandy beach, and ends with a changed world, under Nazi occupation.

The Small House at Allington is the fifth book in Anthony Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire series, set in England's fictitious county of Allington. It centers on Lily Dale, who falls in love with Adolphus Crosbie but faces betrayal when he proposes to Alexandrina instead.