Social issues came to the forefront with the condition of laborers in the Industrial Revolution and later in the Depression: Dickens’ Hard Times, Gaskell’s Mary Barton; Eliot’s Middlemarch; Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath
Social or Sociological novels deal with the nature, function and effect of the society which the characters inhabit – often for the purpose of effecting reform
Slavery and race issues arose in American social novels: Harriet Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 20th c. novels by Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, etc