To my shame I've never read Dickens, but I did read the Romanian canonical authors (I am Romanian), and a lot of them, the ones I liked, gave you a very real sense of the life of the people at the time.
Ion, for example, is basically a tragedy about the titular character scheming to marry a woman whom he doesn't love (but who loves him) because he's poor and she's "rich" (owns land). And the book really shows you how important and spiritually so it is for the main character (and therein, for the average farmer at the time) to work his own land, to sweat and toil over his land. How he collapses to his knees and kisses the dirt when he finally gets it etc.
High schoolers can get most books with adult themes, and most books require very little context, since they are filled with passages upon passages upon passages of description.
> How would you know what the characters in Pride and Prejudice are worried about if you don't know how that society is?
Because they literally say it!
“Not that I am afraid of myself, but I dread other people’s remarks.”
“How can I promise to be wiser … if I am tempted?”
“My father’s opinion of me does me the greatest honour; and I should be miserable to forfeit it.”
“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”
“To Elizabeth it appeared, that had her family made an agreement to expose themselves as much as they could during the evening, it would have been impossible for them to play their parts with more spirit, or finer success.”
I don't think waiting 20 years to acquire a much vaguer and much less correct understanding of the context from YouTube/TikTok/TV cultural diffusion is very wise.