Books like Fanny by gaslight by Michael Sadleir

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.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin: A Novel of Women's Struggle and Feminism in the Late 19th Century South

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.

In pre‑World War II England, Charles Ryder falls under the spell of the Marquesses of Marchmain and their Catholic, aristocratic world, only to confront the gulf between his own life and their privileged past.

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.

A poignant look at the complexities of marriage, friendship, and societal expectations in early 20th‑century Europe.

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.

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.