Classics similar to Jane Austen?

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JoNightshade

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I'm not a big Austen fan, but I need one of my characters to be hoarding a small collection of books like Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, etc.

Essentially: Books with lovely leading ladies who interact with dashing, elegant men. Books about people engaging in detailed social situations rather than big-time action. Where friends refer to each other as "Mr." or "Mrs." so and so rather than first names. Very proper. Etc. etc.

Suggestions? I'm looking more for classics rather than modern stuff; my character is in her forties and she's had this collection since she was young. (The point is that she is not lovely or elegant or a good conversationalist, but that she wishes she could be like the women in these books.)
 
mscelina

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Is this piece set in modern times?

Gone With the Wind is a must, as, I think, would be Sir Walter Scott's Waverley Novels. Um...let me think...you could use Georgette Heyer (late 19302 to 1970s--'invented' the modern Regency novel)--if she loves classics, I'd give her Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables and Alcott's Little Women plus her other books (If you've never read A Long Fatal Love Chase, which was one of Alcott's serial novels that was 'rediscovered' and published a few years back, you should)
 
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Phaeal

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The works of Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), especially the two series called the Barchester novels and the Palliser novels. Trollope is all about detailed social interactions and excels in creating likeable and believable heros and heroines who always manage to find each other in the end. Well, almost always -- your character might want to skip He Knew He Was Right and The Way We Live Now.

BTW, Austen's heros and heroines are also likeable and believable more than they are lovely leading ladies and dashing, elegant men. Both Austen and Trollope are realists at heart, but they have also sturdy senses of humor, whimsy and romance.
 
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mscelina

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Might want to throw Victoria Holt in the mix too, then. If you're looking for the spunky heroine and the dashing man syndrome, she's got it in spades. She's not really 'classic' per se, but I think she'd have to be considered one of the most popular novelists of the 20th century.
 
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