Books like Jane Austin or Dickens but about middle class people?

[Girasoli]

I like books set in Regency/Victorian times but everyone is usually either a member of the landed gentry (Austin) or very poor (Dickens).

I'd love to read some books about people more in the middle (like a Dr or a clerk or something) if anyone has any recommendations.

Thanks 😊

Charlotte Brontë (e.g. Villette), George Gissing (e.g. Grub St) and Arnold Bennett are the first that spring to mind.

Anthony Trollope (dr Thorne) also george Elliot - she wrote about a mix of Victorian society

In fact most of Anthony Trollope has a middle class core - the barchester chronicles are fab!

Middlemarch.

I liked Diary of a Nobody.

I love Anthony Trollope. Recommend.

Mrs Hancock and the Mermaid

MrsGaskell

Mrs Oliphant’s Chronicles of Carlingford novels
Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Chronicles novels
Mrs Gaskell’s Cranford
Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga novels

North and South.

That book was extraordinary!

I finished it this morning ☺️

@CurlyhairedAssassin I came to say Diary of a nobody too - one of my favourites, possibly helped by the whole Mr Pooter of the book being conflated with Edwin Poots the NI politician (it's the most positive thing I can find about the Creationist politician)

George Gissing is the first writer who springs to mind. And if
you’re interested in American novels from the same era, Theodore Dreiser.

Nathaniel Nutmeg is pretty good…about sailors and is nonfiction.

You could check out the Persephone books catalogue, although it's mostly 20th century and late Victorian. But all written by women and plenty of domestic drama
https://persephonebooks.co.uk/

Does Edith Wharton qualify?

And for modern writers - Sarah Waters? maybe Georgette Heyer?

Lousia May Alcott. Known for Little Women, but her other novels are fascinating. Try starting with Work: a story of experience and its sequel.

She was a feminist and abolitionist, with a decidedly unconventional life and views. Her books are mainly about the middle classes and those on the middle/working border (often tipped from one to the other part way through the book), with a lot of independent working women.

It’s not a classic but the paying guests by sarah walters explores the dynamics of the emerging ‘clerk class’ and how the middle class people lived at the time.

It’s set in the 1920s, though.

The Crimson Petal and the White (Victorian).

Islands of Mercy And The Colour both by Rose Tremain both throughly middle class/working class.

There was a book about the Bennett sisters' maid which I enjoyed but cannot remember the name.

Was it “Longbourne”?

My favourite book ever!

May I also recommend The History of Mr Polly?

You want some Gaskell! Try Cranford, North & South, and Ruth. Or even some sensation fiction like East Lynne by Ellen Wood. (Mrs Henry Wood). You’ll never look at the Victorians in the same light again.