What to read after “Northanger Abbey” by Jane Austen: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.
On a trip to Florence, young Lucy Honeychurch meets George Emerson, whose frankness unsettles the strict English manners she was raised to respect. Back in England, she must choose between a safe, conventional engagement and the feelings she has been taught to ignore.
Linda Radlett grows up in an eccentric upper-class family and spends her youth chasing the grand romance she has read about. Her cousin Fanny watches Linda move through marriages, affairs and wartime Paris, learning what love actually costs.
An orphan becomes a governess at the brooding Thornfield Hall. A bond grows between her and its stern master, but the house hides a dangerous secret that threatens the life she is beginning to hope for.
Emma Woodhouse is clever, rich and certain she knows what is best for everyone in her small village. She amuses herself by arranging other people's marriages, but her matchmaking creates misunderstandings and forces her to look more honestly at her own heart.
A box of poisoned chocolates kills a man at his club, and the police can find no culprit. Six members of the Crimes Circle, an armchair detective society, each offer a different solution to the same murder, until amateur sleuth Roger Sheringham tests their theories against the facts.
A boy fleeing his abusive father and a man escaping slavery travel together down the Mississippi on a raft. Their friendship grows as they meet swindlers and feuds along the way, and Huck must decide what he believes. A comic, humane adventure about freedom and conscience.
An orphan boy is suddenly given money by an unknown benefactor and raised into gentility. He falls for a cold, beautiful girl raised to break men's hearts, and chases a life of status he does not understand. A story about class, love and the cost of pride.
A young widow, Helen Graham, moves into the half-ruined Wildfell Hall and keeps to herself, refusing to explain her past. The farmer Gilbert Markham falls for her, then hears rumours about her and her son. Helen's hidden diary slowly reveals the marriage she fled and why she lives in hiding.
A country doctor's wife dreams of romance and a grander life than her dull provincial marriage offers. She takes lovers and spends beyond her means, chasing a happiness that keeps slipping away. A sharply observed novel about desire, debt and disillusion.
Chichikov arrives in a provincial Russian town and charms its officials and landowners. He has come to buy serfs who have died but are still listed on the tax rolls, and his odd scheme draws him into the vanity and corruption of the society around him.
Keiko has worked at the same Tokyo convenience store for eighteen years and is content there, until the people around her begin pressuring her to want a normal life. Deadpan and sharp, the novel follows her attempt to perform the life others expect, by staging a relationship she does not want.
Becky Sharp, clever and poor, leaves school determined to climb London society by any means available. Beside her is her gentle friend Amelia, whose love for a vain soldier leads her toward ruin. The novel follows the two women through marriages, debts and reversals, always with an ironic eye on ambition.
On the same day in Tudor London a beggar boy and the heir to the English throne meet and find they look identical. They trade clothes as a joke, and the swap turns real, so each must survive a life he was never taught to live. A tale of switched places, misrule and what a crown is really worth.
Wedding photographer Mackensie has built her life and the Vows wedding business with three childhood friends, but her parents' failures have left her wary of commitment. When she meets shy English teacher Carter, a steady romance slowly teaches her to trust and to want a future of her own.
Alice follows a hurried white rabbit down a hole and lands in a world where cakes and drinks change her size and nothing follows ordinary rules. She meets the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter and a short-tempered Queen.
A young man raised to believe he is one of the elect is drawn into a double life by a stranger who may be a demon, a double, or a delusion. His own account of his crimes is set against an editor's, and the two versions refuse to agree.
Bombardier Yossarian wants to survive the war and go home, but every attempt to be grounded runs into a rule that answers itself: to be excused he must ask, and asking proves he is sane. Around him, officers profit and comrades die.
Anna Karenina, married to a senior official, meets the young officer Vronsky at a Moscow railway station, and the attraction between them overturns her settled life. In parallel, the landowner Levin wrestles with faith, work and his courtship of Kitty. The novel follows both households and the price society demands.
The animals of Manor Farm drive out their human master and run the farm themselves, promising equality for all. The pigs slowly take control, and their revolution turns into a new kind of tyranny, showing how power can corrupt those who hold it.
A shy young woman marries the widowed Maxim de Winter and arrives at Manderley, his grand estate by the sea. There she is measured against his first wife, the beautiful Rebecca, whose presence lingers in every room, in the servants' loyalty and in a secret nobody will speak.
Practical Flora Poste, newly orphaned, moves in with her gloomy rural relatives at Cold Comfort Farm. Armed with common sense and a strong will, she sets about tidying their tangled lives, one absurd cousin at a time, in a comic send-up of romantic country novels.
Rachel Chu, an economics professor in New York, travels to Singapore for the summer wedding of her boyfriend's best friend. There she learns that Nick's family is one of the wealthiest in Asia, and that his mother has already judged her unsuitable. A comic look at money, family and the marriage market.
After her parents die, Emily St. Aubert is left to the care of an aunt who marries an Italian nobleman. Taken to the gloomy castle of Udolpho, she is surrounded by unexplained sounds, sealed rooms and sinister men, while she tries to keep her love and her safety.
Moist von Lipwig is a con man offered a choice: be hanged, or revive Ankh-Morpork's ruined post office. With the city's mail piled up undelivered in the crumbling post office and a rival message company sabotaging him, he sets out to make the letters move and stay ahead of his own past.
Start with “A Room with a View”, “The Pursuit of Love”, “Jane Eyre”: they are the closest to “Northanger Abbey” in tropes and mood. Under each book in the list you will see what exactly it has in common.
How are similar books chosen?
We compare tropes (for “Northanger Abbey” these are Cinnamon Roll, Coming of Age, Slow Burn), genre, plot, era and tone. It is not “readers also bought”; it is similarity in the content itself.
Are there recent books in this list?
Yes. Among the newer ones are “Convenience Store Woman”, “Vision in White”, “Crazy Rich Asians”. Switch the “Modern” filter to keep only books from 2000 onward.
