Books like Mrs Craddock by William Somerset Maugham

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.

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

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.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles follows Tess Durbeyfield, a rural woman from a poor family, as she confronts poverty, social injustice, and the rigid expectations of early 20th-century English society.

Thomas Hardy’s bleak final novel follows Jude Fawley, a stonemason from rural Wessex, whose search for faith, love and independence collides with society’s harsh conventions and leads to tragedy.

A charming novel of Regency manners and mores, Lady Susan Vernon seeks an advantageous second marriage and attempts to force her daughter into a dismal match.

Henry James’s early novel follows an American diplomat in Paris who must navigate the social intrigues of diplomatic life, the complexities of man‑woman relationships, and the contrasting worlds of America and France during the late nineteenth century.

Silas Marner follows a recluse weaver who withdraws to Raveloe after a wrongful accusation, finding redemption and a second chance at life through the love of an abandoned child.

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.

At Black Rabbit Hall in Cornwall, a quiet holiday home becomes the setting for grief, family secrets, and a startling arrival that upends the lives of the Alton children and their new neighbors.

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.

The Awakening and Selected Stories of Kate Chopin

The works of Kate Chopin, including short stories, psychological fiction, and women's fiction, highlighting the struggles of women and their relationships in the American South of the late 19th century.

Gogol, N. The overcoat. Melville, H. [Billy Budd, sailor](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL102746W) James, H. The Aspern papers. Chopin, K. [The awakening](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL65430W) Conrad, J. Heart of darkness. Joyce, J. [The dead](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15073437W) Kafka, F. The metamorphosis. Lawrence, D.H. St. Mawr. Porter, K.A. Pale horse, pale rider. Pynchon, T. The crying of Lot 49.