Talk

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte.
The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins.
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens.
The Mill on the Floss, George Elliot.

Middlemarch. Cracking novel.

Or Persuasion.
Little Dorrit would be another contender. The Warden and Barchester Towers are also good reads.

Can you tell that I'm just listing my favourite 19th Century novels?

I missed out on those two, and a few others of that ilk at school so last year read them in succession.
while I enjoyed them at the time, they are now a bit blurry about which bits/who was in which book (unless i really think about it) as they are all of a certain time and type.
my advice would be to mix them up with some other genres in between.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Heartbreakingly good.

I love Jane Eyre!

Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier - excellent and highly influenced by JE
Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys - JE retold from another angle (trying not to give anything away there)
Northanger Abbey - this is Austen but it's messing around with gothic cliches and is very funny
The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins (as above). Also The Moonstone, also Wilkie Collins, both gothic classics.

I live Austen.
Another vote also for Wilkie Collins.

Another vote for Wide Sargasso Sea!

Pride and prejudice, maybe Dickens - Bleak house, Silas Marner - George Eliot, Thomas Hardy - Jude the Obscure or The Mayor of Casterbridge. Or maybe something like Dracula?

I loved Rebecca

Tess of the D'Urbervilles or The Mayor of Casterbridge. Any Jane Austen. Frankenstein and Dracula.

Oh yes Rebecca, Dracula and any of Jane Austin's books.

Tenant of Wildfell Hall (so brilliant) or Shirley if you are staying with the Brontes.

Sense and Sensibility or Northanger Abbey if you are leaning towards Austen.

Little Dorrit or Oliver Twist for Dickens.

The Moonstone for Wilkie Collins.

Maryanne or Jamaica Inn for Du Maurier.

For something a little more up to date but still historical what about Frasier's Cold Mountain or Birdsong by Faulks.

If you wanted a modern take on gothic, you could try The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. It's rather good. I loved Rebecca by Daphnia DuMaurier and you might also like My Cousin Rachel which is easy excellent.

Daphne ...... and delete "easy " - no idea where that came from

Armadale by Wilkie Collins - a bit neglected behind The Moonstone or Woman in White but has a cracking female anti-heroine called Lydia Gwilt.

Ooh this is a great thread. It is making me want to study English Literature again. I would love to be in a classics book group. I read The Woman In White for the first time a couple of years ago and loved it.

When you've read JE, read Rebecca by Du Maurier who was deeply influenced by it.

Then Rebecca's Tale by Sally Beauman which takes up the story.

All three deal with what it means to be a woman and a wife or, perhaps more importantly, not a wife.

I was also going to say Rebecca!

Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Lorna Doone
The Moonstone

Try one of Nicholas Sparks books. "Dear John" "The Notebook" "The Best of Me" or like others have said Jane Austen, great reads all of them.

Jane Austen for a little light relief, Moonstone and Woman in White, Mayor of Casterbridge, some Trollope - Barchester Chronicles maybe. If you want to move to more modern times the Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard are a particular favourite of mine and I really enjoyed Any Human Heart by William Boyd.

Though if you enjoy Jane Eyre my choices may be well off - I hate it.

Definitely the Moonstone, I rate that above The Woman in White. Another Collins book that I was intrigued by but not got round to reading is No Name.

If you're reading George Eliot for the first time I'm not sure which is recommend - maybe Adam Bede or Silas Marner. Middlemarch is definitely her masterpiece though.

I'm not a huge fan of Thomas Hardy - too depressing by far - but the Return of the native or the Woodlanders are both good, also Tess of the d'ubervilles. Jude the obscure is just too sad though.

Another book I love which has a strong Gothic feel & reminds me a lot of Wilkie Collins in places is Possession by AS Byatt.

Definitely all of the above but a special vote for Persausion. I think it is Jane Austen's finest work.

marshmallow Maybe 'Under the Greenwood Tree' would be a good start to Hardy?

I totally forgot about Silas Marner - that would definitely be a good (and short!) introduction to Eliot.

DrElizabeth Totally agree with you about Persuasion. It's by far my favourite Austen novel.