Peter Ackroyd
The Lambs Of London

Mary Lamb is confined by domesticity, the only solace of her life being her brother Charles. But he feels equally constrained by the drudgery of his work at the East India Company, taking refuge in drink while spreading his wings as a writer. Sometimes, in the evenings, they study together. Mary reads what Charles reads. So it is no surprise that Mary should fall for the bookseller's son, seventeen-year-old antiquarian William Ireland, from whom Charles has purchased a book.

Elizabeth Aston
The Exploits And Adventures Of Miss Alethea Darcy

High-spirited Alethea Darcy, with all the advantages of youth, beauty and a large fortune, nonetheless makes a disastrous marriage to a man whose charming manners conceal a deeply unpleasant nature. Flinging caution to the wind, she flees the marital home. Masquerading as Aloysius Hawkins, gentleman, and accompanied only by her maid, Figgins, she sets off for Venice to take refuge with most worldly and understanding of her sisters. But event and sometimes dangerous-conspire to thwart her plans

In 1917 Siegfried Sasson, noted poet and decorated war hero, publicly refused to continue serving as a British officer in World War I. He was classified mentally unsound and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital. There Dr William Rivers set about restoring Sassoon's 'sanity' and sending him back to the trenches. Regeneration is the first novel in Pat Barker's acclaimed trilogy, which continues with The Eye in the Door and culminates in the 1995 Booker prize-winning The Ghost Road.