Books like “The Age of Innocence”

What to read after “The Age of Innocence” by Edith Wharton: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
The Grand Sophy
Georgette Heyer · 1950
Similar atmosphere: “Comedy of Manners”
- Comedy of Manners
When Sophy Stanton-Lacy comes to stay with her cousins in London, she finds the household tangled in debts, broken engagements and bad tempers. Cheerful and managing, she sets out to arrange everyone's happiness, clashing with her proud cousin Charles along the way.
2
Crazy Rich Asians
Kevin Kwan · 2013
Similar atmosphere: “Comedy of Manners”
- Comedy of Manners
- Forbidden Love
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.
3
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston · 1937
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Star-Crossed Lovers
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.
4
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen · 1813
Similar atmosphere: “Comedy of Manners”
- Comedy of Manners
Elizabeth Bennet has little patience for the proud Mr Darcy, whose fortune and manners make him an easy target for her wit. Their sparring slowly gives way to a truer understanding as family scandal and society threaten to keep them apart.
5
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy · 1891
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
Tess Durbeyfield, a poor country girl, is sent to wealthy relatives who share her family name. There she is wronged by a young man and later falls in love with Angel Clare, who knows nothing of her past. Society's judgement of her becomes the story's central cruelty.
6
Vanity Fair
William Makepeace Thackeray · 1848
Similar atmosphere: “Comedy of Manners”
- Comedy of Manners
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.
7
Kristin Lavransdatter
Sigrid Undset · 1920
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Forbidden Love
In fourteenth-century Norway the headstrong Kristin defies her devout father to marry the charming Erlend. Their life together brings seven sons, guilt and hardship as the world shifts around them and her early choices return to weigh on her.
8
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.
9
Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake
Sarah MacLean · 2010
Similar atmosphere: “Comedy of Manners”
- Comedy of Manners
Lady Calpurnia Hartwell has spent her life being proper and unremarkable. She draws up a list of scandalous things she longs to try and asks Gabriel St. John, the notorious Marquess of Ralston, to help her. As he escorts her through each escapade, an old acquaintance deepens into love.
10
Cold Comfort Farm
Stella Gibbons · 1932
Similar atmosphere: “Comedy of Manners”
- Comedy of Manners
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.
11
The Thorn Birds
Colleen McCullough · 1977
Similar plot moves: “Love Triangle” and “Star-Crossed Lovers”
On a sheep station in the Australian outback, Meggie Cleary grows up in the shadow of a family curse. She falls in love with Ralph de Bricassart, a priest whose ambition pulls him towards Rome, and the two stay bound to each other for decades by a love they can never openly have.
12
Pachinko
Min Jin Lee · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- 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.