A Mummer's Wife — George Moore

This 1884 novel examines the life of a woman seduced away from her invalid husband by a member of an operetta troupe. Moore's unwavering account of the protagonist's descent into alcoholism -- causing her to do unthinkable things -- was too brutal, however, for readers of the time. One critic wrote, “A more repulsive story was probably never written.” It stands today as one of the first major English-language novels in the realist tradition.