rec requests: Regency and Victorian novels, and novels set during the English Regency/Victorian

[coraa]

Since I've gotten wonderful responses when I asked about cookbooks and steampunk novels (and many thanks to everyone who suggested things -- I've enjoyed many of the books!), I'll try again. I've a hankering for things set in the English Regency and early- to mid-Victorian period (the absolute hard cutoff is that it needs to be pre-WWI). The caveat is: I'm looking for things that focus on social life, society, and -- where possible -- the life of women. IE, I'm looking for Emma, not Kidnapped!; Middlemarch, not King Solomon's Mines. ;) (I say this because the vast scope of Victorian Novels! will swamp me, but focusing on society makes it at least a little bit easier a mouthful to bite off.... Also, because that's frankly what interests me. Society! Relationships! Women!)

I'd be happy to read things actually written during these periods (as long as they're about contemporary society; not so much Ivanhoe), as well as Regency/Victorian historical fiction. Also, Regency romance and category mysteries, as long as they're good! And if you know of good Regency/Victorian fantasy that focuses on social life, please! Suggest!

What I've read (and some examples of what I'm looking for): You don't need to mention Jane Austen; that's covered. ;) I've also read Sorcery and Cecelia and The Grand Tour, by Wrede and Stevermer (the first one many times, even), though I haven't got round to reading the third book in the series. (In fact, S&C is why I got interested in this in the first place, probably.) Also, To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis; Silas Marner, by George Eliot; The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton; Lady Windemere's Fan, The Importance of Being Earnest, and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde; Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton; and, um, this is embarrassing, but the Samantha books by the American Girl Company, which realistically is probably the actual reason for my interest in the period.

What I am already planning to read: Madeleine Robins' Point of Honor; George Eliot's Middlemarch; William Thackeray's Vanity Fair. Also, I am aware of Georgette Heyer, Anthony Trollope, and Charles Dickens, though I'd love suggestions on which books to start with. (I have read David Copperfield.) More Wilde. Ruby in the Smoke, by Philip Pullman. The Temeraire books, though I suspect they're more adventure/military than society-and-culture, and society-culture is what I want. Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome. Tess of the d'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy. (This planning-to-read is heavy on stuf written during the period in question, but I am looking also for modern fiction written about the period; I just don't know as much of it to put on the list.)

Also, if you know of any good nonfiction (I've enjoyed What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, and I wish I could find another copy of Austen's household book) that focuses on society/culture, I'd love to hear that too. And please feel free to point other people to this for more suggestions....

Thank you, everyone!

Comments

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Oh, good to know. Perhaps I'll try Far from the Madding Crowd first -- bleak isn't my favorite thing ever.

(Hm. Austen fanfic. Well, I'm not necessarily unamenable to fanfic, so that may work out as a backhanded recommendation....)

[thegreatgonz.livejournal.com]

You should talk to 2gouda4u about Hardy sometime. She has a whole rant about him.

Note that I didn't say good Austen fanfic. It seemed almost Mary-Sue-ish to me, in that it centers on a small society within Regency England that just happens to have completely modern attitudes to things like social class, sex, and the role of women, while still allowing for balls, country houses, and other superficial trappings of Regency romance. Nonetheless, I don't want to dissuade you. It's not a bad book, it just wasn't as authentic as I'd been led to believe from the things I'd heard about it.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Ah, that does change things somewhat. I'm frequently frustrated by the number of fantasy and historical novels in which the main characters rebel against their culture's societal mores in a way that is suspiciously convenient in its similarity to an average modern reader's mores. Often I can overlook it as a minor flaw, in an oh-well-fluffy-novel-what-can-you-do kind of way, but in the worst cases it actively annoys me, both for its dismissal of the reality of historical social pressures and for the way the technique tries to get the advantages of both a cool! rebel! hero and of not challenging the modern reader's perceptions too much.

(Especially -- though from what I've heard this isn't as much a problem with the Temeraire books -- when there's a smarmy undertone of 'my, weren't those historical folk stupid! clearly my protagonist cannot be stupid like them.')

I'll probably still read it, but thanks for the heads-up.