Simon Schama's Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1989) is a modern account of the people and events of the French Revolution that show how the rational goals of the Revolution mix with irrational elements of the same period.

The Pickwick Papers (first serialized 18361837), Charles Dickens's tremendously popular first novel, concentrates on the relationship between middle-class Mr. Pickwick and his lively Cockney servant Sam Weller.

A Christmas Carol, in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas (1843) is Dickens's perennially popular story about how the spirits of Christmas turn an old miser's outlook back to humanity.

Dickens's Great Expectations (1861) is the story of a young man's slow advancement in society against the backdrop of mid-Victorian England.

War and Peace (1866) is Leo Tolstoy's study of Russian society during the period of the Napoleonic Wars and the French invasion of Russia.