Psychological fiction books

Steppenwolf

Hermann Hesse

The novel is a psychological study set in early‑twentieth‑century Germany, introduced through the eyes of a…

The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 2

Henry James

The second volume continues the intricate social drama that began in the first book, weaving together themes…

Wieland; Or, The Transformation: An American Tale

Charles Brockden Brown

The work presents itself as a moral experiment in narrative form, an epistolary confession that promises to…

Women in Love

D. H. Lawrence

Women in Love is a psychological novel that opens in the modest Brangwen household of a Midlands mining town,…

The Ambassadors

Henry James

The work is a psychological novel that first appeared in twelve installments of The North American Review in…

The American

Henry James

The novel opens on a sun‑splashed May day in 1868, when an athletic American visitor reclines on the circular…

The Country of the Pointed Firs

Sarah Orne Jewett

The novel is a series of tightly linked sketches set in the small coastal village of Dunnet Landing, Maine,…

A Hero of Our Time

Mikhail Iurevich Lermontov

A. M. Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time opens amid the stark, windswept valleys of the Caucasus, where…

The Rise of Silas Lapham

William Dean Howells

The novel is a psychological and domestic study of a self‑made New England businessman, set against the…

New Grub Street

George Gissing

The novel is a psychological study of the literary world of late‑Victorian London, set among a small family…

The Aspern Papers

Henry James

The novel is a work of psychological fiction set in Venice, where a narrator, guided by the resourceful Mrs.

Pierre; or The Ambiguities

Herman Melville

Pierre; or The Ambiguities is an autobiographical‑style work that folds the narrator’s own reflections into a…

Armadale

Wilkie Collins

Wilkie Collins’s Armadale opens with a self‑conscious address to readers, warning that the novel may…

Trilby

George Du Maurier

Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad

The novel opens on the mist‑shrouded Thames, where a small yacht carries a handful of men, Marlow, the…

Victory: An Island Tale

Joseph Conrad

The novel is a psychological adventure set in the Dutch East Indies, weaving themes of revenge, abuse, and…

The Lifted Veil

George Eliot

The work is a psychological and paranormal narrative that begins with a narrator confronting his imminent…

No Name

Wilkie Collins

Wilkie Collins’s No Name is a Victorian psychological drama that opens in the early hours of a March morning…

Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 1

Samuel Richardson

The work is an epistolary novel that presents its story through a succession of letters, a format highlighted…

The Painted Veil

W. Somerset Maugham

The Painted Veil is a psychological novel that weaves together themes of adultery, domestic strain, and the…

A Voyage to Arcturus

David Lindsay

The novel is a blend of science‑fiction adventure and psychological exploration, set up as a séance in a…

The Golden Bowl — Complete

Henry James

The work is a psychological domestic drama that opens with a young American “Prince” wandering the streets of…

Death in Venice

Thomas Mann

The Bride of Lammermoor

Walter Scott