Social Protest stories
Work, law and inherited authority decide whose hardships are heard and whose are treated as ordinary.
More about these stories
In Manchester, Mary Barton moves between families divided by hunger and wealth. On a Philippine steamer, officials take the shaded upper deck while students press for a school. Jean Valjean carries a yellow passport through a town that keeps refusing him shelter. Institutions become visible through the lives they constrain.
Les MiserablesYou are Jean Valjean, out of the galleys with a yellow passport and a bishop's candlesticks to answer for.Ongoing · 150 chapters · About 7 hr 40 min published so farBy netfable official
Mary BartonManchester in the hungry forties: the mills stand quiet, fever fills the cellars, and the masters stay behind their curtains.Complete · 76 chapters · About 4 hr 40 min totalBy netfable official
The Prime MinisterYou are Sexty Parker of Little Tankard Yard, and Ferdinand Lopez wants your signature on a three-month bill for seven hundred and fifty pounds.Ongoing · 70 chapters · About 3 hr 55 min published so farBy netfable official
Nicholas NicklebyYou are Nicholas Nickleby, undermaster at Dotheboys Hall, where boys starve and the drudge Smike is beaten.Ongoing · 62 chapters · About 2 hr 40 min published so farBy netfable official
Oliver TwistYou are Oliver, the baby-farm orphan whose asking for more gets you locked in a dark room and sold under a five-pound notice.Ongoing · 53 chapters · About 2 hr 35 min published so farBy netfable official
MotherYou play Pelageya Vlasova, a worker's widow who finds a leaflet under her son's pillow, learns to read it, and then to carry it town to town.Ongoing · 50 chapters · About 2 hr 20 min published so farBy netfable official
The Ragged-Trousered PhilanthropistsYou are Frank Owen, a house painter in Rushton's crew, at dinner in the gutted mansion the men call the Cave.Ongoing · 48 chapters · About 2 hr 15 min published so farBy netfable official
Felix Holt, the RadicalYou play Felix Holt, home in Treby Magna to burn the labels off your late father's quack medicine and teach working men their votes.Ongoing · 45 chapters · About 1 hr 45 min published so farBy netfable official
Jude the ObscureYou are Jude Fawley, a stonemason's apprentice who teaches himself Latin on a ridge above Marygreen for a city that will not open its doors.Ongoing · 45 chapters · About 2 hr 15 min published so farBy netfable official
Noli Me TangereYou play Crisostomo Ibarra, seven years in Europe and home to a dinner where a friar refuses your hand.Ongoing · 45 chapters · About 2 hr 5 min published so farBy netfable official
Uncle Tom's CabinYou play Uncle Tom, sold south from Aunt Chloe's cabin with a silver dollar from young George Shelby in your vest pocket.Ongoing · 45 chapters · About 2 hr 10 min published so farBy netfable official
Man and WifeYou are Anne, governess to Blanche Lundie, waiting in the summer house for Geoffrey Delamayn to honor a promise of marriage.Ongoing · 42 chapters · About 2 hr 5 min published so farBy netfable official
GerminalYou play Etienne Lantier, an unemployed mechanic walking into Montsou, where the pit is called Le Voreux because it devours what enters.Ongoing · 40 chapters · About 1 hr 55 min published so farBy netfable official
RuthYou play Ruth Hilton, apprentice to a dressmaker, mending a torn flounce at the ball when Henry Bellingham finds you.Ongoing · 40 chapters · About 1 hr 25 min published so farBy netfable official
ShirleyYou play Robert Moore, a mill owner hiding soldiers in the dye-house while masked frame-breakers smash your new machinery in the dark.Ongoing · 40 chapters · About 2 hr 5 min published so farBy netfable official
The OctopusYou are Presley, a poet riding into the San Joaquin to write the West, and the ledger keeps getting in the way.Ongoing · 40 chapters · About 2 hr 5 min published so farBy netfable official
VittoriaYou are Carlo Ammiani, a young noble of Milan, sworn to a rising fixed for the night a soprano of nineteen sings at La Scala.Ongoing · 40 chapters · About 2 hr 5 min published so farBy netfable official
For the Term of His Natural LifeYou play a son disowned in one night, convicted under the name Rufus Dawes.Ongoing · 36 chapters · About 2 hr 10 min published so farBy netfable official
The Prince and the PauperA returning soldier sees a ragged boy driven from a palace gate while insisting he is the prince.Ongoing · 33 chapters · About 1 hr 40 min published so farBy netfable official
The Odd WomenYou are Rhoda Nunn, fifteen, taking tea with the six Madden sisters on the day their father decides to insure his life for a thousand pounds — tomorrow.Ongoing · 33 chapters · About 1 hr 25 min published so farBy netfable official
El FilibusterismoThe steamer Tabo labours up the Pasig with friars and officials on the shaded upper deck and students crowded below.Ongoing · 30 chapters · About 1 hr 35 min published so farBy netfable official
The Garies and Their FriendsYou are Emily Garie, hosting George Winston, once enslaved, back from a North where strangers took him for white until he named where he came from.Ongoing · 30 chapters · About 1 hr 45 min published so farBy netfable official
Hard TimesYou are Sissy Jupe, listed as Girl Number Twenty in Mr Gradgrind's fact-only schoolroom, unable to define a horse to his satisfaction while Louisa Gradgrind watches in silence.Ongoing · 26 chapters · About 1 hr 30 min published so farBy netfable official
Mr. Hogarth's WillYour uncle's funeral leaves Cross Hall to Francis Hogarth, his unacknowledged son, and a will that gives you and your sister Elsie three years' allowance each, with a clause forbidding either of you from marrying him.Ongoing · 24 chapters · About 1 hr 10 min published so farBy netfable official
The Daughters of DanausYou play Hadria Fullerton, composing music in stolen hours inside a house that treats ambition as ingratitude, arguing late at night with your siblings about whether talent can survive duty.Ongoing · 24 chapters · About 1 hr 10 min published so farBy netfable official
The Heart of Mid-LothianYou play Jeanie Deans, watching your younger sister Effie stagger home after a week nobody can account for, too ill to explain herself and refusing to name the man involved.Ongoing · 24 chapters · About 59 min published so farBy netfable official
ClotelYou are Clotel, facing the auction block where a Richmond estate will sell you alongside your mother and sister.Ongoing · 22 chapters · About 1 hr 5 min published so farBy netfable official
The Wife of Sir Isaac HarmanA travelling writer meets a woman helping at an inn and hears that she has left one of England's richest men.Ongoing · 22 chapters · About 56 min published so farBy netfable official
A Knight of the White CrossYou are Sir Thomas Tresham, a Lancastrian gentleman sent from Amboise with no written commission to ready the west for Queen Margaret.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 25 min published so farBy netfable official
A Thorny PathYou are Melissa, a gem-cutter's daughter in Roman Alexandria.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 19 min published so farBy netfable official
Birds Without a NestYou play Lucia, newly settled with your husband in the white house at Killac, where mountain air was supposed to be the only reason for coming.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 23 min published so farBy netfable official
Condemned as a NihilistYou are Godfrey Bullen, sixteen and sent from Shrewsbury to learn the Russian side of your father's firm.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 26 min published so farBy netfable official
Contending ForcesYou are Dora Smith, helping your mother settle a new lodger, Sappho Clark, into the sunny room upstairs.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 23 min published so farBy netfable official
Dona PerfectaYou play Pepe Rey, an engineer riding into a town that calls its dry gully the River of Plenty.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 22 min published so farBy netfable official
Dutch the DiverYou are Dutch Pugh, engineer and diver at Parkley's Ramwich yard, with old Rasp, who once roped you and brought you up, at the pumps.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 24 min published so farBy netfable official
Friends, Though DividedYou are Harry Furness, a royalist's son, bound by a compact to Herbert, a Parliament man whose sister Lucy keeps you both honest.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 23 min published so farBy netfable official
Goldsmith's Friend Abroad AgainAn immigrant reaches San Francisco carrying a promise that American law treats everyone equally.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 26 min published so farBy netfable official
Imperium in ImperioYou are Belton Piedmont, assigned the back bench at a poorly funded school for Black children while your teacher favors Bernard Belgrave, a classmate raised on a senator's anonymous money.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 24 min published so farBy netfable official
Iola LeroyFresh butter means the Union has gained ground.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 24 min published so farBy netfable official
Maggie: A Girl of the StreetsYou are Maggie Johnson, growing up in Rum Alley between a brother who turns every beating into a legend and a mother who drinks through the furniture.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 21 min published so farBy netfable official
Margret HowthYou are Margret Howth, starting your first day of paid work as a bookkeeper at Dr.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 25 min published so farBy netfable official
No Surrender!You are Leigh Stansfield, a Poole smuggler's son apprenticed to the Nantes wine house your sister Patsey's marriage to Jean Martin opens.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 25 min published so farBy netfable official
Patience WinsYou are Jacob Russell, called Cob, whose word sends your father and uncles Dick, Jack and Bob from dying Bermondsey works to hostile Arrowfield.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 25 min published so farBy netfable official
Phantom FortuneYou are Lady Maulevrier, holding a London season level while the Indian mail accuses your absent husband, the Governor of Madras.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 27 min published so farBy netfable official
SabAn English traveller loses his guide on the road to Bellavista and asks the nearest rider for directions.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 25 min published so farBy netfable official
Saint Bartholomew's EveYou are Philip Fletcher, an English farm boy whose Huguenot mother Lucie fled Poitou, sent at sixteen back to her kin with money and her gold ring.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 24 min published so farBy netfable official
Temporal PowerYou are a king of a southern realm, and you have begun reading what you sign.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 26 min published so farBy netfable official
The Country DoctorA cavalry officer carrying a sleeping boy discovers a mountain valley whose prosperity seems impossible.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 21 min published so farBy netfable official
The Home and the WorldNikhil has hired tutors for his wife and refused the obedience other men admire; now he asks her to leave the inner rooms and hear a political meeting with no screen between her and the hall.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 24 min published so farBy netfable official
The Sport of the GodsYou are Berry Hamilton, butler to the Oakleys, readying Francis's Paris farewell dinner while your wife Fannie manages the linens and your children carry the trays.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 24 min published so farBy netfable official
The World for SaleA proposed railway junction sharpens the rivalry between two towns on opposite banks of a river.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 25 min published so farBy netfable official
The Young CastellanYou are Roy Royland, heir of Royland Castle, polishing rusted armour with old Ben Martlet while your father Sir Granby fights for the King.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 26 min published so farBy netfable official
With Lee in VirginiaYou are Vincent Wingfield of the Orangery, where you stop the overseer Pearson's whip over Dan and tame Wildfire by patience instead of fear.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 25 min published so farBy netfable official
Wynema: A Child of the ForestYou are Miss Weir, a new teacher at an Indian Territory mission school, praying in a language most pupils can't follow until Wynema Harjo crosses the room to ask what you meant.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 24 min published so farBy netfable official
Sunshine BillWilliam Sunnyside grew up among a large family, an apple stall, a wherry, and parents who kept kindness alive when the cash-box was empty.Preview · 1 chapter · About 6 min published so farBy netfable official
The Boy Who Sailed with BlakeBen hauled in a mackerel line while Lancelot Kerridge held the helm and Dick Harvey kept an oar out to windward.Preview · 1 chapter · About 5 min published so farBy netfable official
