North and South

An orphaned governess falls for her employer at Thornfield, where something is locked away on the third floor. Jane leaves, survives on her own terms, and returns to Rochester as an equal.

Charlotte Bronte

A clergyman's daughter takes work as a governess and finds the families she serves worse behaved than the children. Drawn from Anne Bronte's own experience, it closes with a modest, hard earned marriage.

Anne Bronte

Frank Gresham loves Mary Thorne, who has neither fortune nor a name his family will accept. Trollope untangles the money and the birth records until the marriage everyone opposed becomes the obvious one.

Anthony Trollope

Lucy Honeychurch is kissed in a field outside Florence and spends the rest of the book pretending it meant nothing. She breaks off the respectable engagement and returns to Italy with George.

E M Forster