Items20The creator’s order
  1. 1Bleak House (1853)Bleak House (1853)Published 1 Jan 1853A disputed inheritance becomes an industry for the people paid to sort it out. Dickens links the Court of Chancery to households that cannot plan a future while the case drags on, making delay itself the villain. Esther's intimate account alternates with a wider, sharper narrator. The 1852–53…0
  2. 2The way we live now (1875)The way we live now (1875) 8.3/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1875The alarming thing about financier Augustus Melmotte is how quickly good society discovers that his money improves his manners. Investment schemes, marriage prospects and access to the right drawing rooms feed one another. This is the choice for anyone who enjoys watching reputations manufactured…0
  3. 3North and South (1855)North and South (1855) 7.9/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1855A change of address forces Margaret Hale to reconsider what she thinks she knows about work, poverty and respectable behaviour. In industrial Milton, attraction to a mill owner keeps colliding with questions about his employees. The romance has real friction because economic arguments enter…0
  4. 4Vanity Fair (1847)Vanity Fair (1847)Published 1 Jan 1847Becky Sharp knows that charm, connections and a plausible appearance can do the work of an income. Thackeray's intrusive narrator makes social climbing entertaining while refusing to keep the supposedly good people safely above it. Follow the money and marriage calculations rather than looking for…0i
  5. 5Cranford (1853)Cranford (1853) 8.2/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1853A community of genteel women has perfected the art of making very little money look like a matter of taste. Small rules about visiting, dress and expenditure expose how fragile respectability can be, but Gaskell gives mutual help as much attention as snobbery. This is the gentler, shorter route…0
  6. 6Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1996)Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1996)Published 1 Jan 1996A woman arriving with a child becomes the neighbours' favourite subject before they know her circumstances. Anne Brontë turns that gossip towards a much harder question: what does marriage permit a man to do, and what room does a woman have to leave? The diary inside the framing letters gives the…0
  7. 7Our Mutual Friend (1865)Our Mutual Friend (1865)Published 1 Jan 1865An inheritance tied to a marriage condition draws a whole London economy into view, from scavenging to fashionable dinner parties. Dickens makes wealth built from rubbish a useful rebuke to people who imagine money has cleaned their origins. Choose this for grotesque social comedy mixed with a…0i
  8. 8Middlemarch (1871)Middlemarch (1871)Published 1 Jan 1871Marriage, professional ambition and credit are never private matters when an entire town is keeping accounts. Eliot gives idealistic people motives they only partly understand, then shows the practical consequences for everyone around them. It is especially rewarding if you enjoy revising a quick…0
  9. 9Barchester towers (1905)Barchester towers (1905)Published 1 Jan 1905Church appointments turn out to involve income, influence, domestic authority and a surprising amount of tactical flirting. Trollope enjoys the distance between Christian professions and the scramble for a comfortable position. You do not need to know the finer points of church factions to…0
  10. 10Little Dorrit (1857)Little Dorrit (1857)Published 1 Jan 1857Debt is a prison, but having money does not necessarily free a family from its habits of deference and display. Amy Dorrit's household gives Dickens an intimate route into financial dependency, while the Circumlocution Office turns institutional evasion into vicious comedy. Read it for the…0