swap_horiz Bel-Ami Alternatives

1

Lazarillo de Tormes

The Lazarillo de Tormes is a foundational Spanish novella published around 1554. It’s notable as an early example of pic...

Classic Spanish Satire Rogue

9.7 Brilliant

2

Dead Souls

Nikolai Gogol’s *Dead Souls* is a 19th-century Russian picaresque novel centered around Pavel Chichikov’s bizarre scheme...

Russian Classic 19TH Century Satire

9.2 Excellent

3

Gil Blas

Gil Blas is a lengthy French novel by Alain-René Lesage, spanning from 1715 to 1735. This picaresque work follows the ad...

18TH Century Classic French Satire

8.9 Great

4

Memórias de um Sargento de Milícias

Memórias de um Sargento de Milícias is an 1852-1853 Brazilian serial novel by Manuel Antônio de Almeida, satirizing urba...

Classic 19TH Century Satire Rogue

8.5 Great

5

The Luck of Barry Lyndon

The Luck of Barry Lyndon is William Makepeace Thackeray's 1844 serial picaresque, narrated by an Irish fortune-hunter se...

19TH Century Satire Rogue British

8.2 Great

6

The Mangy Parrot

The Mangy Parrot is an 1816 Mexican novel by José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi, widely regarded as the first novel publi...

Classic 19TH Century Satire Rogue

8.1 Great

7

The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak

The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak is Charles De Coster's 1867 Belgian novel, recasting the trickster as a...

Classic 19TH Century Satire Belgian

8.1 Great

8

The Diary of a Chambermaid

The Diary of a Chambermaid is Octave Mirbeau's 1900 French novel, using servant Célestine's diary to expose bourgeois hy...

French 19TH Century Satire Servant

8.0 Great

9

Fasana-e-Azad

Fasana-e-Azad is Ratan Nath Sarshar's Urdu picaresque, serialized in Avadh Akhbar from 1878 to 1883 and considered an ea...

Classic 19TH Century Satire Urdu

7.8 Good

10

Bay Ganyo

Aleko Konstantinov's 1895 Bulgarian picaresque work follows Bay Ganyo, a crude rose-oil merchant traveling Europe, satir...

Classic 19TH Century Bulgarian Satire

7.8 Good

11

L'Histoire comique de Francion

L'Histoire comique de Francion is Charles Sorel's 1623 French comic novel, a picaresque-style satire of a young gentlema...

Classic French Satire Rogue

7.7 Good

12

The Papess Joanne

Emmanuel Rhoides' 1866 Greek novel follows the legendary Pope Joan, blending picaresque satire with historical fiction t...

Classic 19TH Century Satire Historical

7.7 Good

13

Le Roman bourgeois

Le Roman bourgeois is Antoine Furetière's 1666 French satirical novel, notable for mocking Parisian bourgeois life and l...

Classic French Satire Urban

7.4 Good

14

Modern Idyll

Modern Idyll is Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin's 1883 Russian political satire, first serialized from 1877 in Otechestvennye...

Russian Classic 19TH Century Satire

7.2 Good

15

Ivan Vejeeghen

Ivan Vejeeghen is Thaddeus Bulgarin's 1829 Russian picaresque novel, often cited as Russia's first bestseller and read a...

Russian Classic 19TH Century Satire

6.7 Fair

16

The Russian Gil Blas

The Russian Gil Blas is Vasily Narezhny's 1814 Russian picaresque novel, an explicit Lesage imitation and a suppressed p...

Russian Classic 19TH Century Satire

6.6 Fair

17

The Man of Many Sufferings

Operating within the picaresque genre, this novel uses the episodic suffering of its downtrodden protagonist to satirize...

Classic 19TH Century Satire Rogue

6.2 Fair

18

The Exile of 1831

This picaresque novel follows the wandering life of a protagonist displaced by the historical upheavals of 1831, using a...

Classic 19TH Century Satire Greek

6.1 Fair

19

Xouth the Ape

Employing an animal protagonist, this picaresque novel follows the titular ape's episodic adventures, using satirical fa...

Classic 19TH Century Satire Greek

5.9 Mediocre

20

Bizarro

Bizarro is Sir Walter Scott's unfinished 1832 novella about the Calabrian brigand Francesco Moscato, first published fro...

Classic 19TH Century Satire Rogue

5.7 Mediocre