Book recommendations please! Period novels especially

[StillNo]

Hello! Merry Christmas!
I’m looking for something new to read and I need help please. If any clever person has a moment.

I don’t do modern books. I try but I haven’t found one I like since the Time Traveller’s Wife.

Looking for some period novels I haven’t read yet. Things I like:

All Jane Austen
The Turn of the Screw
Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Jane Eyre
Agatha Christie
Cold Comfort Farm
Anything by MR James
Return of the Native
Rebecca

Would really appreciate some recommendations please. Thank you!

I like everything on your list. Here are some that I really like:

Sadie Jones - The Outcast (1950s) and The Uninvited Guests (1900s)
Elizabeth Jane Howard - the Cazalet chronicles, starting with The Light Years
Sarah Walters - Fingersmith and The Little Stranger
Helen Dunmore - The Siege (of Leningrad) and Counting the Stars (Roman)

I like a lot of series as well, including the Poldark novels, Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway detective novels set in Norfolk, the Outlander novels and -obviously - Georgette Heyer novels. Nothing very surprising here, I'm sure.

Anything by Edith Wharton.
The Enchanted April.
Anything by E M Forster.
Anything by Rudyard Kipling.
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.
Barbara Pym is more modern (1950’s) but worth a try.

I like all your books too! Few ideas:

Period:

A Christmas Carol - seasonal and spooky to build on The Turn of the Screw, also short
Tess of the D’Urbervilles - best big historical novel imo
Wuthering Heights - continue your Bronte theme
The Pursuit of Love - Agatha Christie period but funny

Modern:

Eight Months on Ghazzah Street - Hilary Mantel semi-autobiographical Turn of the Screw type story about living in Saudi, also short
What about historical fiction as a bridge between period and modern? Try The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory

And Daphne du Maurier.

Loved, loved, loved The Cazalet Chronicles.

Was going to suggest a Thomas Hardy book

How about some Dorothy L Sayers? My favourite is Murder Must Advertise. I also like Josephine Tey.

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Jonny got his Gun (warning: super bleak, but also incredible)
Anna Karenina (this one probably fits in best with your already-read list)

Have you read Georgette Heyer? Regency Buck is a great read

Any Thomas Hardy

Phillippa Gregory

Kate Morton

Another vote for the Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard. Also enjoyed a number of novels by the Mitfords - Love in a Cold Climate and the Pursuit of Love by Nancy and Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford.

Vanity fair

Sorry, Hons and Rebels is an autobiography but still a good read - they were a pretty extraordinary family.

There are some WONDERFUL titles available at Persephone Books. Books that had gone out of print but are being revived in small print runs. 141 to choose from

persephonebooks.co.uk/

I was going to say Georgette Heyer Regency novels, they are quite light to read but very well researched and historical details are authentic and quite interesting.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice

Have you tried Sarah Waters' novels? I think Fingesmith is her best, very Dickensian in feel, with a brilliant plot. There was a bit that actually made me gasp with shock. In fact all of her novels are very good.

Another Sarah Waters fan here. I loved Fingersmith.

Thanks for the link to Persephone books - that looks an amazing resource.

Have you tried Norah Lofts? The House at the Old Vine trilogy is amazing.

Also Sharon Penman. Reading her is like stepppng into
Another world.

Patrick Hamilton’s ‘Slaves of Solitude’ is about a group of disparate people living in a boarding house having been bombed out of their residences during WW2. I loved this book.

Or ‘Hangover Square’ which is rather bleak.

If you like ghost stories, ‘The Beckoning Fair One’ by Oliver Onions is a novella, Edwardian era about a writer holed up in a haunted residence, very creepy.

Or ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1892, a disturbing and remarkable for its time feminist narrative.

My recommendation is to find a proper oxfam bookshop and buy all the green virago modern classics you can find. I haven’t had a bad one yet.

My absolute favourite recent find is Troy Chimneys by Margaret Kennedy. Actually also great is the ladies of Lyndon and also the feast.

And give dickens a go too. Bleak house is amazing although I’d probably not start with it. Maybe a tale of two cities or one of the comedies

I really love The Crimson Petal and The White by Michel Faber.

Ahh thank you so much!! I didn’t think anyone would reply, there are loads here to go through! Thank you.

I forgot to mention Vanity Fair - one of my absolute favourites.
I’ve only read A Christmas Carol by Dickens though, might give some more if his a try.

Some here I haven’t heard of - much appreciated thank you!

Cazelet chronicles
The Historian
How to Stop Time
Small pleasures
Jonathan strange and mr norrell
Brooklyn
North snd South
The country Girls
EM forster - Passage to India, Howard’s End, Room w a view, Maurice
FS Firzgerald - tender is the night, great gatsby
Barbara pym

I know that it is epically long - so get it as each book in a separate volume- but War and Peace is really good. It's a cracking story and kept me gripped. And then you can say you've read War and Peace
Also second the Elizabeth Gaskell and Edith Wharton suggestions as you like Jane Austen.