Victorian Society

Things are looking up in Riverford, Texas, in June 1898. Czech immigrant, Sarah Novak, is finally graduating from teacher's college. Surely she will now put aside all that foolishness about being a professional woman and marry Lee Logan. After all, what young woman could ask for more? Lee is a handsome, young banker who will take his new bride off to bustling Fort Worth, Texas, and give her a life of luxury.

One of Jane Austen's most complex and mature works, Mansfield Park shows the writer at the top of her form, tackling the manners and customs of early 19th-century society with wit and irony that still resonate with readers two centuries after the book's initial publication. Flo Gibson's compelling narration gives perfect voice to the trials and tribulations of Fanny Price, sent at a young age to live with her rich relations.

The Professor, the first novel that Charlotte Brontë completed, is based on her experiences as a language student in Brussels in 1842. Told from the point of view of William Crimsworth, the only male narrator she created, the work questions many of the presuppositions of Victorian society.

This multi-layered novel concerns complex social relationships in a provincial Victorian neighborhood and the struggle to hold fast to personal integrity in a materialistic environment.

Meg Swift has a tiny problem with stealing. What else is she to do when her uncle triples the estate rents? She learns how to mend roofs, plant turnips—and how to steal. She's too busy for her godfather's parade of single gentlemen at the Cinderella Ball. Dougal Black has just been plucked from a millhouse as the last of the Thorncroft duchy bloodline. And if he's not married by the end of the year, the Prince of Wales will choose his bride for him. But Dougal doesn't know the rules of this new world. Luckily, Meg does.

When Frederick, an American expatriate traveling in Europe, meets the commonplace, newly rich Miller family from New York, he is charmed by the daughter, Daisy, and her "inscrutable combination of audacity and innocence". The Millers have no perception of the complex code that underlies behavior in European society, and Winterbourne is astonished at the girl's unworldliness and her mother's unconcern when Daisy accompanies him to the Castle of Chillon.

A lady should never be obliged to think of matters financial! But when Lady Wilhelmina Bascombe's carefree, extravagant lifestyle vanishes with the demise of her husband, her only hope lies in retrieving a family treasure - a Renaissance masterpiece currently in the hands of a cunning art collector in Venice. Thankfully, the Lady Travelers Society has orchestrated a clever plan to get Willie to Europe, leading a tour of mothers and daughters...and one curiously attentive man.

Persephone Blackwell prefers digging in the dirt for old bones and secret treasure to anything Society might have to offer. When her godfather, the Duke of Pendleton, decides to host a Festival of Antiquaries, she jumps at the chance to take part—especially since it's the best way to save her oldest friend, Henry Talbot, who is being framed for treason. She has not yet found the evidence that he has sent home hidden inside Egyptian forgeries—but she does find something else: Conall Hunter, the Earl of Northwyck.