Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy misjudge each other in a comedy of marriage, income, and pride. Austen’s second published novel is still the surest entrance to her shelf.
Subject
Romance
Courtship, attachment, and the practical choices around them. These are older novels of feeling and manners, gathered as literature rather than as a modern romance shelf.
Emma
Emma
by Jane Austen
Emma Woodhouse has money, leisure, and a talent for arranging other people’s lives. The novel lets her be charming and wrong in the same sentence.
Sense and Sensibility
Sense and Sensibility
by Jane Austen
Two sisters, turned out of their home, try sense and feeling as ways of surviving love and reduced means. It was Austen’s first published novel.
Persuasion
Persuasion
by Jane Austen
Anne Elliot broke an engagement years ago and has had to live quietly with the decision. A return of the man she refused gives the book its second chance.
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre
An orphan becomes a governess and refuses every arrangement that would make her less than a person. The house at Thornfield holds a secret the marriage plot cannot step around.
Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina
by Leo Tolstoy
Anna’s affair and Levin’s search for a workable life run side by side in imperial Russia. Tolstoy gives the social world as much weight as the passion. The link is to a public-domain English translation.
Far from the Madding Crowd
Far from the Madding Crowd
by Thomas Hardy
Far from the Madding Crowd originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in Cornhill Magazine, where it gained a wide readership. Far from the Madding Crowd is set in Thomas Hardy's Wessex in rural southwest England, as had been his earlier Under the Greenwood Tree.
Northanger Abbey
Northanger Abbey
by Jane Austen
Although the title page is and the novel was published posthumously in 1817 with Persuasion, Northanger Abbey was completed. From a fondness of Gothic novels and an active imagination distorting her worldview, the story follows Catherine Morland, the naïve young protagonist, as she develops a better understanding of herself and the world around her.
The Return of the Native
The Return of the Native
by Thomas Hardy
The Return of the Native first appeared in the magazine Belgravia, a publication known for its sensationalism, and was presented in 12 monthly instalments from 9 January to 19 December. Because of the novel's controversial themes, Hardy had some difficulty finding a publisher; reviews, however, though somewhat mixed, were generally positive.
Daddy-Long-Legs
Daddy-Long-Legs
by Jean Webster
Daddy-Long-Legs stays with the protagonist, Jerusha "Judy" Abbott, as she leaves an orphanage and is sent to college by a benefactor whom she has never seen. Daddy-Long-Legs was initially serialized in the April–September issues of the Ladies' Home Journal, and first published in book form by The Century Company.
The American
The American
by Henry James
The American is an uneasy combination of social comedy and melodrama concerning the adventures and misadventures of Christopher Newman, an essentially good-hearted but rather gauche American businessman on his first tour of Europe.
A pair of blue eyes
A pair of blue eyes
by Thomas Hardy
A pair of blue eyes was the first of Hardy's novels to bear his name and was included by Hardy in his "romances and fantasies".
St. Ives: Being the Adventures of a French Prisoner in England
St. Ives: Being the Adventures of a French Prisoner in England
St. Ives: Being the Adventures of a French Prisoner in England was completed by Arthur Quiller-Couch. Unable to write, Stevenson dictated thirty chapters of the novel to his stepdaughter as a diversion from his debilitating illness.
Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women
Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women
Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women turns on the character Anodos ("pathless" in Greek) and takes its inspiration from German Romanticism, particularly Novalis. Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women concerns a young man who is pulled into a dreamlike world and there hunts for his ideal of female beauty, embodied by the "Marble Lady".
The Princess of Cleves
The Princess of Cleves
by Madame de (Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne) La Fayette
The Princess of Cleves was regarded by many as the beginning of the modern tradition of the psychological novel and a classic work. Its author is generally held to be Madame de La Fayette.
Manon Lescaut
Manon Lescaut
by abbé Prévost
Manon Lescaut tells a tragic love story about a nobleman (known only as the Chevalier des Grieux) and a common woman (Manon Lescaut). Their decision to live together without marriage is the start of a moral decline that also leads to gambling, fraud, theft, murder, and Manon's death as a deportee in New Orleans.
Our Mutual Friend
Our Mutual Friend
Our Mutual Friend is the fourteenth and final novel completed by English author Charles Dickens and is one of his most sophisticated works, combining savage satire with social analysis.
Little Dorrit
Little Dorrit
Little Dorrit features Amy Dorrit, youngest child of her family, born and raised in the Marshalsea prison for debtors in London. Arthur Clennam encounters her after returning home from a 20-year absence, ready to begin his life anew.
Maid Marian
Maid Marian
Peacock wrote all but the last three chapters of Maid Marian at Marlow. He wrote to Percy Bysshe Shelley that he did not find "this brilliant summer", "very favourable to intellectual exertion" but before it was quite over "rivers, castles, forests, abbeys, monks, maids, kings, and banditti were all dancing before me like a masked ball".
The Professor
The Professor
The Professor was written in before Jane Eyre, but was rejected by many publishing houses. The Professor was eventually published, posthumously, with the approval of Charlotte Brontë's widower, Arthur Bell Nicholls, who took on the task of reviewing and editing the text.
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, often shortened to Romeo and Juliet, is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare about the romance between two young Italians from feuding families. Romeo and Juliet was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed.
Cymbeline
Cymbeline
Although it is listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify Cymbeline as a romance or even a comedy. Like Othello and The Winter's Tale, it takes up the themes of innocence and jealousy.
Mucedorus
Mucedorus
A Most pleasant Comedie of Mucedorus the Kings Sonne of Valentia, and Amadine the Kinges daughter of Aragon, commonly called Mucedorus, is an Elizabethan romantic comedy, first performed and regularly revived until the Restoration.
A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future
A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future
A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future is a science fiction novel by John Jacob Astor IV, published.
Lilith: A Romance
Lilith: A Romance
Lilith: A Romance is considered among the darkest of MacDonald's works, and among the most profound. In the story, MacDonald mentions a cosmic sleep that heals tortured souls, preceding the salvation of all.
The Messengers
The Messengers
The Messengers stars Kristen Stewart, John Corbett, William B. Davis, Dylan McDermott, Carter Kolbeck and Penelope Ann Miller.
The Pathfinder; Or, The Inland Sea
The Pathfinder; Or, The Inland Sea
The Pathfinder; Or, The Inland Sea is the fourth novel Cooper wrote featuring Natty Bumppo, his fictitious frontier hero, and the third chronological episode of the Leatherstocking Tales. The inland sea of the title is Lake Ontario.
The Blithedale Romance
The Blithedale Romance
The Blithedale Romance is the third major "romance", as he called the form. Its setting is an utopian socialist farming commune based on Brook Farm, of which Hawthorne was a founding member and where he lived.
Mary Barton
Mary Barton
Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life was the first novel by English author Elizabeth Gaskell, first published. Mary Barton is set in the English city of Manchester, and takes up the difficulties faced by the Victorian working class.
The Sorrows of Young Werther
The Sorrows of Young Werther
The Sorrows of Young Werther was one of the main novels in the Sturm und Drang period in German literature, and influenced the later Romantic movement. Goethe, aged 24 at the time, finished Werther in five and a half weeks of intensive writing in January to March.
Ramona
Ramona
Set in Southern California after the Mexican–American War and annexation of the territory by the United States, Ramona explores the life of a mixed-race Scottish–Native American orphan girl. Ramona was inspired by the marriage of Hugo Reid and Victoria Reid.
The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1
The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1
by Henry James
The Portrait of a Lady is one of James's most popular novels and is regarded by critics as one of his finest. The Portrait of a Lady recounts a spirited young American woman, Isabel Archer, who, "affronting her destiny," finds it overwhelming.
Two on a Tower
Two on a Tower
by Thomas Hardy
Two on a Tower is regarded as one of his minor works. Two on a Tower is one of Hardy's Wessex novels, set in late Victorian Dorset.
Doctor Thorne
Doctor Thorne
Doctor Thorne is the third book in his Chronicles of Barsetshire series, between Barchester Towers and Framley Parsonage. The idea of the plot was suggested to Trollope by his brother Thomas.
The Mysteries of Udolpho
The Mysteries of Udolpho
Her fourth and most popular novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho tells of Emily St. Aubert, who suffers misadventures that include the death of her mother and father, supernatural terrors in a gloomy castle, and machinations of Italian brigand Signor Montoni.
Poor Miss Finch
Poor Miss Finch
Poor Miss Finch is a novel by Wilkie Collins published on 26 January 1872 about a young blind woman who temporarily regains her sight while finding herself in a romantic triangle with two brothers.
The Lady of Blossholme
The Lady of Blossholme
by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard
The Lady of Blossholme is set during the time of Henry VIII, and features the Pilgrimage of Grace.
The Red Lily — Complete
The Red Lily — Complete
The Red Lily (French: Le Lys rouge) is a novel by Anatole France, published.
Alice of Old Vincennes
Alice of Old Vincennes
Alice of Old Vincennes, written by Maurice Thompson in 1900, is a novel set in Vincennes during the American Revolutionary War.
Wives and Daughters
Wives and Daughters
Wives and Daughters was partly written whilst Gaskell was staying with the salon hostess Mary Elizabeth Mohl at her home on the Rue du Bac in Paris. When Mrs Gaskell died suddenly in 1865, it was not quite complete, and the last section was written by Frederick Greenwood.
The Small House at Allington
The Small House at Allington
The Small House at Allington first appeared as a serial in the Cornhill Magazine, running from the July–December issue to the July–December issue of the following year. In it was published as an independent work in two volumes.
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine has been adapted many times for stage and screen.
The Day of the Dog
The Day of the Dog
The Day of the Dog is a novel written by George Barr McCutcheon in 1904.
The Midnight Passenger : A Novel
The Midnight Passenger : A Novel
The Midnight Passenger: A Novel is his second book of this type, the first one being Different Seasons. In the introduction, King says that, while a gathering of four novellas like Different Seasons, this book is more strictly horror with elements of the supernatural.
Fanshawe
Fanshawe
Fanshawe was his first published work, which he published anonymously.
A Sicilian Romance
A Sicilian Romance
A Sicilian Romance was her second published work, and was first published anonymously.
Ernest Maltravers — Volume 02
Ernest Maltravers — Volume 02
by Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton
Ernest Maltravers is Gothic in style, and features a protagonist combining "Byronic stature and Coleridgean philosophical ambition". The following year it was adapted into a stage play of the same title by Louisa Medina, which first appeared on 28 March at the National Theatre in New York City.
A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day first appeared serially in Cassell's Magazine in England from March 4 to August 26, 1871. Similar to 's Griffith Gaunt, the novel received negative reviews in the English press due to its content, which included extramarital relations and a courtesan, but this also helped increase sales of Reade's works in America.
A Modern Instance
A Modern Instance
A Modern Instance concerns the deterioration of an once loving marriage under the influence of capitalistic greed. A Modern Instance is the first American novel by a canonical author to seriously consider divorce as a realistic outcome of marriage.
Through the Eye of the Needle: A Romance
Through the Eye of the Needle: A Romance
Through the Eye of the Needle: A Romance is the final volume in Howells's "Altrurian trilogy," following A Traveler from Altruria and Letters of an Altrurian Traveler. Like the second book in the trilogy, Howells casts the third and final book in the form of an epistolary novel — a form favored by some other Utopian and dystopian writers.
A Traveler from Altruria: Romance
A Traveler from Altruria: Romance
A Traveler from Altruria: Romance was first published in installments in The Cosmopolitan between November and October, and eventually in book form by Harper & Brothers. A Traveler from Altruria: Romance is a critique of unfettered capitalism and its consequences, and of the Gilded Age.
Far Above Rubies
Far Above Rubies
Far Above Rubies stays with the life of a young woman named Lilith, who is raised in a wealthy family but feels unfulfilled by a life of luxury and privilege. She longs for something more meaningful and decides to leave her comfortable existence to pursue her own path.
Villette
Villette
After an unspecified family disaster, the protagonist Lucy Snowe travels from her native England to the fictional Continental Europe city of Villette to teach at a girls' school. Villette was Charlotte Brontë's third and last novel published during her life.
Leila or, the Siege of Granada, Book I
Leila or, the Siege of Granada, Book I
by Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton
Leila or, the Siege of Granada, Book I is set in Granada, Spain at the end of the Middle Ages — beginning in the summer. Leila or, the Siege of Granada, Book I was originally published in an expensive form, with many engraved illustrations.
A Romance of the Republic
A Romance of the Republic
A Romance of the Republic, published, was Lydia Maria Child's fourth novel and the capstone of her remarkable literary career. Written shortly after the Civil War, it offered a progressive alternative to Uncle Tom's Cabin.
The Danger Trail
The Danger Trail
The Danger Trail is based on the novel of the same title by James Oliver Curwood. The Danger Trail is a Northern (genre), set during the construction of the Hudson Bay Railway in Canada.
The Man Who Laughs: A Romance of English History
The Man Who Laughs: A Romance of English History
by Victor Hugo
The Man Who Laughs: A Romance of English History takes place in England beginning and extends into the early 18th-century reign of Queen Anne. The Man Who Laughs: A Romance of English History depicts England's royalty and aristocracy of the time as cruel and power-hungry.
The Claverings
The Claverings
The Claverings recounts a young man starting out in life, who must find himself a profession and a wife; and of a young woman who makes a marriage of convenience and must accept the consequences of her decision.
A Cigarette-Maker's Romance
A Cigarette-Maker's Romance
by F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
A Cigarette-Maker's Romance was based on a novella by Francis Marion Crawford which had been turned into a popular stage play by Martin Harvey. A Russian Count has to live in poverty in Munich where he falls in love with a co-worker at the cigarette factory where he is employed.
Can You Forgive Her?
Can You Forgive Her?
Can You Forgive Her? Is the first of six novels in the Palliser series, also known as the Parliamentary Novels. Can You Forgive Her? Stays with three parallel stories of courtship and marriage and the decisions of three women: Alice Vavasor, her cousin Glencora Palliser, and her aunt Arabella Greenow.
Sense and Sensibility
Sense and Sensibility
by Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility (working title: Elinor and Marianne) is the debut novel by English author Jane Austen, appearing. Sense and Sensibility was published anonymously: By A Lady appears on the title page where the author's name might have been.
The Wings of the Dove, Volume II
The Wings of the Dove, Volume II
by Henry James
The Wings of the Dove recounts Milly Theale, an American heiress stricken with a serious disease, and her effect on the people around her. Some of these people befriend Milly with honourable motives, while others are more self-interested.
The Prime Minister
The Prime Minister
by William Henry Giles Kingston
The prime minister of India (ISO: Bhāratīya Gaṇarājyasya Pradhānamantrī) is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and his chosen Council of Ministers, despite the President of India being the nominal head of state.
The Childerbridge Mystery
The Childerbridge Mystery
by Guy Boothby
The Childerbridge Mystery was originally serialised in The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) in 21 instalments in January, before its initial book publication in England. The Childerbridge Mystery was also serialised in several other Australian newspapers in the first half.
A Singular Life
A Singular Life
A Singular Life was first published in serial form in The Atlantic Monthly from January through October, and published in novel form in late. A Singular Life was the fourth highest best-selling book in the United States.
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 01 (of 10)
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 01 (of 10)
by Richard Francis, Sir Burton
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, subtitled A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, is the only complete English language translation of One Thousand and One Nights (the Arabian Nights) to date – a gathering of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age (8th−13th centuries) – by the British explorer and Arabist Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890).
Hearts of three
Hearts of three
by Jack London
Hearts of three was finished right before the writer's death and released in the New York Journal. Hearts of three is based on an idea by Charles Goddard.
The Romance of a Shop
The Romance of a Shop
by Amy Levy
The Romance of a Shop turns on the Lorimer sisters, who decide to open their own photography business after the death of their father leaves them in poverty. The Romance of a Shop examines the opportunities and difficulties of urban life for the "New Woman" in the late nineteenth century, maintaining their right to independent opinion and the questioning of social norms.
Lady Athlyne
Lady Athlyne
by Bram Stoker
Lady Athlyne was published one year before the release of Stoker's The Lady of the Shroud. A romance results that touches on the themes of mistaken identity, honor, and social rebellion.
The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck: a romance
The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck: a romance
by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck: a romance takes a Yorkist point of view and proceeds from the conceit that Perkin Warbeck died in childhood and the supposed impostor was indeed Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York. Henry VII of England is repeatedly described as a "fiend" who hates Elizabeth of York, his wife and Richard's sister, and the future Henry VIII, mentioned only twice in the novel, is a vile youth who abuses dogs.
The cloven foot
The cloven foot
by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
The Cloven Foot is an 1879 novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon that combines aspects of the sensation novel and detective novel, and may even be considered an early legal thriller.