Wikipedia page about this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Group_of_Noble_Dames

Release date is 2002-01-01

The first Countess of Wessex -- Barbara, of the house of Grebe -- The Marchioness of Stonehenge -- Lady Mottisfont -- The Lady Icenway -- Squire Petrick's lady -- Anna Lady Baxby -- The Lady Penelope -- The Duchess of Hamptonshire -- The Honorable Laura.

Transcribed from the 1920 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price

"A Group of Noble Dames" by Thomas Hardy is a collection of short stories published in 1891. Ten members of a club gather to share tales of aristocratic women from the 17th and 18th centuries. Each storyteller—from a local historian to a surgeon to a churchwarden—reveals the dramatic lives and fates of these noble ladies. Framed as an evening's entertainment, the collection blends romance, tragedy, and the complexities of upper-class society across two centuries of English history. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Original publication data not identified