Eliot's Silas Marner (1861) is a story of alienation and betrayal that nevertheless has comedic elements.

Adam Bede, which was hugely successful when Eliot published it in 1859, tells the story of Hetty Sorrel—a young woman who is seduced, has a baby, and neglects it so that it dies—and of Adam Bede, who loves her.

Middlemarch (1872), widely considered Eliot's most ambitious work, presents a clash between individuals' aspirations and the limitations imposed on them by society.

Eliot's Daniel Deronda (1876) tells the story of Daniel, an early Jewish activist in England.

Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847) tells the story of an orphan girl who becomes a governess in a mysterious household.

In Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891), a rural woman is seduced by an unworthy man and is subsequently abandoned by her husband.