Anne of Avonlea

Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy grow up together and hold each other steady through poverty, illness and first love. Alcott wrote the friendship between sisters as the real plot, and the complete two part novel is here.

Louisa May Alcott

Anne Shirley arrives at Green Gables by mistake and finds in Diana Barry the bosom friend she had only imagined. A warm portrait of how a friendship can make a place become home.

Lucy Maud Montgomery

Behind the romance sits the friendship between Elizabeth Bennet and Charlotte Lucas, and the sisterly loyalty that ties Elizabeth to Jane. Austen uses those bonds to test every judgment her heroine makes.

Jane Austen

Emma Woodhouse decides to manage the life of her friend Harriet Smith, and the damage teaches her what friendship actually costs. Austen at her sharpest on the difference between company and care.

Jane Austen

A small town run almost entirely by women who watch out for each other through gossip, scarcity and quiet crisis. The clearest portrait in the classics of friendship as a whole community.

Elizabeth Gaskell