100 Books Like Gentleman Jack

I’ve always been fascinated by the “dreaming spires” of Oxford University and enjoy Gaudy Night because it immerses me in the world of a (fictional) women’s college set in 1930s Oxford.

As a former professor, I’m intrigued by the internecine political and personal battles in the Senior Common Room (SCR), or college faculty lounge, as well as the friction between those professors devoted entirely to an academic career versus those trying to maintain the challenging balance of work and family, the same issues women struggle with today, nearly one hundred years later.

Sayers weaves together these tensions with a mysterious “poltergeist” who torments the college with poison-pen letters, pranks, vandalism, and violence into a compelling mystery under the dreaming spires.

Born Constance Lloyd and buried as Constance Holland, she is most widely known as Constance Wilde, wife of playwright and martyr Oscar Wilde.

For all that is written about Oscar and the trouble he found exploring his homosexuality in the 1890s, this fresh perspective on the obscured wife is invaluable. A daughter, sister, and mother, Constance was also an author, an activist, and (as suits the one name she never changed) a faithful friend.

Drawing on hundreds of unpublished letters, this book demystifies a woman overshadowed. Know the important work she did to free women of the confines and fatal dangers of the previous century’s dresses. Feel the heartbreak of a ruinous marriage—the man who betrayed her, and the children she couldn’t protect. Remember Constance, because she mattered too.

A stand-alone installment of the Miss Marple series, I chose The Moving Finger for this list because it involves letters and neighborhood gossip.

Set in the seemingly placid village of Lymstock, the story unfolds when a series of vicious poison-pen letters shatter the village’s quiet charm. The situation escalates when one recipient commits suicide, a death that requires justice.

Miss Marple enters the plot as the vicar’s houseguest and ultimately outsmarts the mystery. Her strength comes from the way others dismiss her as a harmless little old lady. To most she is unimportant and insubstantial, if they notice her at all. These assumptions free her to do detective work unnoticed.

If you like Miss Marple, there are 12 full-length books and 20 short stories that feature her shrewd adventures—enjoy!

The second of The House at Baker Street series, this book solves the mystery of why a disproportionate number of patients are dying in a private ward at St. Barts hospital in London.

Atmospheric and engaging, Birkby’s writing develops Mrs. Hudson and Mary Watson in practical, unsentimental ways while not ignoring their emotions, or how those feelings motivate them. These are two adults with unique histories and strengths, and they develop a bond equivalent to an aunt and niece after Mary becomes Mrs. Watson, and joins the cast of characters that frequent Mrs. Hudson’s 221B home.

These women are not vehicles for a Holmes and Watson storyline—the men are almost completely absent. These ladies are two fully realized characters with their own cases to solve and innocents to save.

This book introduced young Anne's diaries to book-buyers for the first time. You’ll enjoy reading her recording in secret code (and in intimate detail) her affairs with other women.

"I love and only love the fairer sex and thus beloved by them in turn, my heart revolts from any other love but theirs." These are probably Anne’s words that will stay with you longest.

A book that really puts the enemies in enemies-to-lovers. The only thing Scarlett and Quin want more than to kill each other is to bed each other, and they’re not sure it actually takes priority.

This results in some of the funniest romance and fight scenes I’ve read and a relationship that’s hard not to root for. My girlfriend recommended this book to me, and we loved sharing its absurd romance.

One thing about being adopted is you have an in-built radar to seek out others who are too. I read Jeanette Winterson’s first novel, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit when I was a teenager, and since then, I have been in awe of her as a writer and her ability to eloquently describe her personal experience as an adoptee. 

This book is her autobiography, and there were occasions while reading it that I had to stop and cry. Finally, someone else had written about what I had kept holed up inside me. Her final chapter, "The Wound," speaks so profoundly to me as an adopted adult. It is honest, sharp, and fierce.

Sapphic historical romances are few and far between, especially ones as intelligently written and historically grounded as Olivia Waite’s. My favorite moves beyond the typical Regency ballroom setting with its slow-burn romance between two 40-something women. Penelope’s a rural beekeeper, and Agatha a London printer, one whose worrisomely politically radical son might be putting her business in danger.

I admire both the lovely writing and the intelligently grounded historical setting (the story takes place against the backdrop of the Queen Caroline affair and the post-Napoleonic repression of the English press). Above all, I appreciate Waite’s deftly crafted and utterly appealing characters, two unconventional business owners who both enjoy their work almost as much as they do one another.

When talking about how gender can be disconnected from bodies, I like to tell the story of when my very young son called a Hummer truck ‘masculine’ and then wondered aloud how a car can be masculine. In that vein, this book shows how the idea of masculinity is something much wider and more complicated than a ‘trait of men’ connected to the bodies of men.

With grounded and deeply researched examples, Halberstam shows how these masculine traits not only can be ‘de-linked’ from the ‘male body,’ but how they have been so throughout history. He also shows how female masculinity has often been hidden or forgotten. This book is a classic in gender studies, and once you have read it, it’s impossible to think of gender in the same way as before.

Elle’s had a crush on her elusive classmate Madeline for ages, and when she runs into her at the party she and her bestie crash, she’s ecstatic to finally get the chance to chat Madeline up. Unfortunately, she drinks too much and ends up back at her apartment the next morning with a bad hangover and a bag full of stolen expensive trinkets.

Somehow this accidental theft ends up bringing her and Madeline, who has quite a few secrets of her own, closer together. Reverse heist hijinks, going to too many parties, smooching, and self-discovery ensue.

Lucie Bryon’s art is expressive and lively, and the characters feel like real teens—big crushes, bad decisions, and all.