Hemlock and After

This is a book which seems almost Dickensian in its scope, though fortunately not in its length. It follows the stories of a network of characters, all intricately linked by some path to the central figure; his story, his decline and fall, impacts on them all. It's not a book for leisurely reading; it requires concentration to follow the many characters and subplots. But through it we are given a portrait of the society at the time, and the survey is comprehensive: it includes writers, politicians, public servants, academics, cockneys, and a procuress, a faded hostess, a credulous intellectual; the successful, the failing, the evil, the mercenary and the idealistic. Continued

Seems a bit tame now, but was groundbreaking when first published. It shows the reader a snippet in time which resembles our own (because we are still dealing with many of the same issues).