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What are your favourite classic?

55 replies

BrandNewAndImproved · 19/09/2015 22:55

Can we make a list please?

I'll start with Rebecca, would love to know yours now it's almost winter.

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notsoold · 09/11/2015 04:27

Pride and Prejudice
100 hundred years of Solitude

Authors
Machado de Assis
Fernando Pessoa
C S Lewis

And Bleak House

MissMarpleCat · 22/10/2015 18:44

I've read Rebecca about 5 times, definitely one of my favourites.
Others include:
Howard's End
A Room with a view
The Old Curiosity Shop
Bleak House
Pride & Prejudice
Sense & Sensibity
Northanger Abbey
Great Expectations

crapfatbanana · 22/10/2015 18:38

I'm going to nick the tradition of reading a classic every autumn. I'm kicking off with Middlemarch.

I don't really love any classics, but I do like most Dickens, Poe and Conrad's The Secret Agent.

Actually I do love Rebecca but I'm never sure if it's a classic in the strict sense.

Fixitwithwine · 21/10/2015 17:46

All jane Austen novels
Vanity fair
I loved Heidi and What Katy Did when I was younger too

overthemill · 19/10/2015 22:24

I kind of assumed Classics were older than either Contemporary or Modern Fiction ie before 1950 ? I'd there a consensus ?

overthemill · 19/10/2015 22:23

The Secret Agent: Joseph Conrad
Portrait of a Lady: Henry James

MiddleAgeMiddleEngland · 19/10/2015 21:21

ThomasSofty I think The Woodlanders might be my favourite Hardy, too. I like waiting for a day in the autumn or winter when I can curl up in a chair and read it all in one day. I've done that a couple of times, it's lovely.

Has anyone mentioned Love in the Time of Cholera yet? I think I prefer it to 100 Years of Solitude.

Also VS Naipaul, especially Miguel Street and A House for Mr Biswas.

MsAmerica · 18/10/2015 22:01

Jane Austen, starting with Pride and Prejudice.

ThomasSofty · 12/10/2015 09:25

My absolute favourite is Frankenstein, glad to see it mentioned above! Closely followed by The Woodlanders, my favourite Hardy by a mile.
I have started reading some American classics recently (Henry James in particular), and am really enjoying them.

alteredimages · 08/10/2015 11:13

Glad someone mentioned Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Just finished rereading it for the first time in about 15 years and wish I had understood it better the first time around. Would have saved me a lot of bother and heartache!

AngieWhats · 05/10/2015 20:44

All of Thomas Hardy
Wuthering Heights
North and South
Moll Flanders

I'd definitely call '100 Years of Solitude' a classic! Or are we only talking dead English writers of the 17th-19th centuries? Wink

I also love American classics. Love Faulkner. Love Harlem renaissance writers - my favourite is 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' by Zora Neale Hurston.

MissBEverdene · 05/10/2015 20:31

Jane Eyre
Far from the Madding Crowd
North and South
Pride and Prejudice
Rebecca

Lambbone · 28/09/2015 23:09

Jellybean I just read Vanity Fair for the first time (I'm over 50), and wonder what I've been doing with my life. I'm being a bit of a public nuisance now, pouncing on people and insisting they read it if they haven't done so before.

You lot! Put the tablet down and go and read Vanity Fair. Such fun!

thegiddylimit · 28/09/2015 23:03

18th century: another vote for Tristram Shandy, also love Tom Jones
19th century: love Wilkie Collins, Vanity Fair, the Brontes, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell
20th century: Love in a Cold Climate, Cold Comfort Farm, Jeeves and Wooster, On the Road, Goodbye to All That, To Kill a Mocking Bird

MNemonica · 28/09/2015 22:28

A Room with a View

Middlemarch

Emma - or indeed any Jane Austen

juststoppit · 28/09/2015 22:23

Another Hardy fan here, although I'm not particularly well-versed.

Far From the Madding Crowd, and The Mayor of Casterbridge.

gingercat12 · 28/09/2015 16:59

Other than the ones already mentioned
The Visit by Friedrich Durrenmatt
The Idiot, Crime and Punishment, Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevskiy
The Red and the Black by Stendhal
Faust by Goethe
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

SheGotAllDaMoves · 27/09/2015 19:54

Rebecca.
Nineteen Eighty Four.

theredjellybean · 27/09/2015 16:56

Vanity Fair

SilverNightFairy · 27/09/2015 15:10

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

A Midsummer Night's Dream

I read both at least once year..

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 27/09/2015 15:04
Grin
AnneEtAramis · 26/09/2015 23:13

We'd be fine then as I can't abide Lambrini but could deal with a but of chick-lit.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 26/09/2015 18:41

Although I must admit, I'm quite partial to a glass of Lambrini. Not to chick lit though!

AnneEtAramis · 26/09/2015 18:34

Haha, Remus, I looks that comparison.

hackedoffnow · 26/09/2015 16:16

Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)

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