Books like “Tess of the d'Urbervilles”

What to read after “Tess of the d'Urbervilles” by Thomas Hardy: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston · 1937
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
Janie Crawford tells her friend the story of her life: three marriages, a long search for love and independence, and the storm that changes everything. Set in the Black towns and farms of Florida, the novel follows her from a silent girl to a woman who speaks for herself.
2
Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy · 1878
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
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.
3
Me Before You
Jojo Moyes · 2012
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Star-Crossed Lovers
Bubbly Lou takes a job caring for Will, a wealthy young man left paralysed after an accident and bitter about the life he has lost. As she tries to show him there is still joy worth living for, the two of them change each other in ways neither expected.
4
The Age of Innocence
Edith Wharton · 1920
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
Newland Archer is engaged to May Welland in old New York society when May's cousin, the Countess Olenska, returns from Europe after leaving her husband. Newland and the Countess are drawn to each other, but the rules of their world demand that he marry May and hide what he feels.
5
Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe · 1958
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Betrayal
Okonkwo, a respected wrestler and farmer in a Nigerian village, builds his standing on a fear of appearing weak. When he is exiled and, years later, British missionaries and officials arrive, the customs that shaped him begin to collapse around him and his people.
6
The Bell Jar
Sylvia Plath · 1963
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
Esther Greenwood wins a magazine internship in New York, but the city and the pressure of her bright future leave her feeling hollow. Back home, her mind begins to slip and she is drawn toward a darkness she cannot name, even as she tries to recover.
7
Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert · 1856
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Forbidden Love
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.
8
The Catcher in the Rye
J. D. Salinger · 1951
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
Expelled from prep school and drifting through New York before going home, teenager Holden Caulfield narrates a few days of restless encounters. He rails against adults he calls phonies while quietly grieving a brother and his own place in the world.
9
Pachinko
Min Jin Lee · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
A young woman in colonial Korea, Sunja, leaves home for Japan with a husband she barely knows and raises a family that lives as outsiders for generations. Through war and poverty, the household holds on to its dignity and its secrets.
10
Speak
Laurie Halse Anderson · 1999
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
Melinda begins high school as an outcast after calling the police at a summer party, and barely speaks. Through art class and small moments she slowly confronts what happened to her that night and finds the words to name it.
11
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Victor Hugo · 1831
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
Quasimodo, the deformed bell-ringer of Notre-Dame, is kept hidden by the archdeacon Frollo. When the gypsy dancer Esmeralda is accused of witchcraft, several men desire or condemn her, and the cathedral becomes both her refuge and her trap. Set in 1482 Paris among beggars, judges and stone gargoyles.
12
Atonement
Ian McEwan · 2001
Similar plot moves: “Star-Crossed Lovers” and “Betrayal”
On one summer day in 1935, a girl misreads what she sees and tells a lie that destroys two lives. Years later, as war looms, she tries to understand and atone for what she did. A novel about memory, guilt and the stories we tell to survive.