Books like The old maid by Edith Wharton

Pride and Prejudice is a classic novel by Jane Austen.

In post‑war New York, Newland Archer faces a dilemma when his fiancée’s cousin, the rebellious Ellen Olenska, challenges his elite society’s expectations and his own loyalty.

In wintry Starkfield, Massachusetts, disabled farmer Ethan Frome is trapped in a loveless marriage to Zeena while his unrequited love for Zeena’s cousin Mattie drives a desperate, tragic triangle that culminates in a failed attempt to escape together.

A young governess in a remote estate discovers that the souls of two children are threatened by the malevolent ghosts of a former governess and her lover.

Set in the 1830s Midlands, George Eliot’s Middlemarch intertwines village life, politics, and the struggles of its characters to explore social reform, gender roles, and community hypocrisy.

In Edith Wharton’s classic, Lily Bart, a beautiful and intelligent young woman devoted to luxury, struggles to navigate New York’s strict social hierarchy and moral expectations, ultimately confronting the limits of her independence.

Young Caroline Meeber's journey from girlhood to womanhood in 19th-century Chicago and New York, exploring themes of independence, relationships, and the struggles of rising above expectations in a harsh environment and the promise of the American Dream through the eyes of a runaway teenager, with a twist of psychological thriller elements.

When her daughter Amelia is suspended and later found dead, a mother faces police, guilt, and a mystery that forces her to question the truth of her own grief.

Edith Wharton's satiric anatomy of American society in the first decade of the twentieth century appeared in 1913; it both appalled and fascinated its first reviewers, and established her as a major novelist. It follows the career of Undine Spragg, recently arrived in New York from the Midwest and determined to conquer high society. Glamorous, selfish, mercenary, and manipulative, her principal assets are her striking beauty, her tenacity, and her father's money. With her sights set on an advantageous marriage, Undine pursues her schemes in a world of shifting values, where triumph is swiftly followed by disillusion. Wharton was re-creating an environment she knew intimately, and Undine's education for social success is chronicled in meticulous detail. The novel superbly captures the world of post-Civil War Ameria, as ruthless in its social ambitions as in its business and politics. - Back cover.

George Eliot’s final novel follows Daniel Deronda, a young English upper‑classman who, after a chance meeting with the Jewish woman Mirah, becomes embroiled in a search for her lost family and develops a deep sympathy for Jewish aspirations.