A searing critique of the American Dream, The Great Gatsby exposes the moral emptiness that can accompany immense wealth. The mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby throws famously extravagant parties, all in a desperate attempt to win the affection of Daisy Buchanan, a woman who represents the established "old money" he can never truly join.
Fitzgerald masterfully illustrates the corrosive influence of wealth on relationships, integrity, and happiness in the lavish, yet spiritually hollow, world of 1920s high society.
In this classic coming-of-age story, Dickens interrogates the power of money to shape identity and morality. The orphan Pip’s life is transformed when an anonymous benefactor grants him a fortune, allowing him to pursue the life of a gentleman.
However, Pip quickly discovers that wealth brings new anxieties and social pressures, corrupting his values and alienating him from his humble roots. The novel powerfully questions society's reverence for wealth, suggesting that true character is forged in loyalty and love, not bank accounts.
Tom Wolfe's sharp-witted satire captures the excess and arrogance of 1980s New York City. The plot centers on Sherman McCoy, a self-proclaimed "Master of the Universe" and wealthy Wall Street bond trader whose life implodes after a hit-and-run accident in the Bronx.
Wolfe uses McCoy’s downfall to expose the deep schisms of class, race, and power in the city, showing how extreme wealth creates a dangerous sense of entitlement and moral blindness among the financial elite.
This controversial novel uses the lens of wealth to mount a savage critique of 1980s consumer culture. Patrick Bateman is a handsome, wealthy Wall Street investment banker whose identity is constructed entirely from luxury brands, exclusive restaurants, and physical perfection.
This obsession with surface-level perfection, however, masks a profound moral vacuum and a psychopathic inner self driven to commit horrific acts of violence. Ellis draws a disturbing parallel between extreme wealth, emotional emptiness, and brutality, suggesting a society consumed by what it owns, not what it is.
Set in London in the year leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, Capital offers a panoramic view of modern urban life through the residents of a single street, Pepys Road.
As property values skyrocket, the diverse inhabitants—from a wealthy investment banker to a Pakistani immigrant family—find their lives increasingly defined by financial anxiety.
When each household begins receiving postcards with the message "We Want What You Have," the novel expertly reveals how money, debt, and economic status both connect and divide people in a globalized world.
A scathing indictment of Victorian England’s obsession with financial speculation and social status, Trollope's novel feels remarkably modern. The story is driven by the arrival of Augustus Melmotte, a mysterious foreign financier of dubious origins who is nevertheless embraced by London society because of his immense, apparent wealth.
Trollope reveals a world where greed blurs the line between honesty and fraud, and societal hypocrisy allows charlatans to thrive as long as they promise prosperity.
In this philosophical epic, money is presented as a moral and noble force. Rand’s novel depicts a dystopian United States where society is collapsing under the weight of excessive government regulation and a collectivist ethos that punishes achievement.
The nation's most brilliant innovators and industrialists, led by Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden, go on strike, vanishing from a world they feel has exploited them. For Rand, money is the ultimate symbol of productive achievement, and the novel is a fierce defense of capitalism, ambition, and the right of the individual to their own earnings.
This wildly entertaining satirical novel pulls back the curtain on the secretive and fabulously wealthy elite of Singapore. When economics professor Rachel Chu accompanies her boyfriend, Nick Young, to his best friend’s wedding, she is shocked to discover his family is among the richest in Asia.
Kwan uses humor and lavish detail to explore how generational wealth, social hierarchy, and family duty function in a world where money is a tool for maintaining power and lineage. The story hilariously skewers the clash between old money, new money, and those who have no money at all.
Based on the life of a real-life tycoon, this novel is a powerful work of American Naturalism that portrays ambition as an unstoppable force of nature. Frank Cowperwood is a brilliant, amoral man driven by an insatiable desire to amass wealth and power in the world of post-Civil War finance.
Dreiser presents Cowperwood's financial conquests and romantic affairs as two sides of the same ruthless quest for dominance, showing money as an irresistible force that shapes destiny and bends morality to its will.
Dickens once again explores the destructive power of money, this time through the crushing weight of the English legal system. The novel’s sprawling plot is anchored by the infamous, generations-long inheritance case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which has ensnared countless individuals in its impenetrable web.
The promise of unearned wealth paralyzes characters, corrupts their lives, and ultimately consumes them. Bleak House is a masterful critique of institutional rot fueled by greed and the corrosive effect of a system that profits from human misery.
With its famous maxim, "Only connect," this novel masterfully examines the intersection of money, class, and social responsibility in Edwardian England. The story follows the relationships between three families: the wealthy, pragmatic Wilcoxes; the cultured, idealistic Schlegel sisters; and the struggling, lower-middle-class Basts.
Forster uses the ownership of the country home Howards End as a powerful symbol to explore how wealth and property influence one’s character, morality, and capacity for empathy, vividly depicting the social chasms that money creates.
In this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, money is not about lavish spending but about the invisible, iron-clad rules that govern New York’s "old money" society in the 1870s. Newland Archer is a wealthy young lawyer torn between his conventional fiancée, May Welland, and her scandalous, free-spirited cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska.
Wharton provides a subtle yet devastating critique of a world where wealth is used to enforce absolute conformity and preserve social purity at all costs, demonstrating how financial security can become a gilded cage that stifles love and individuality.