Can you recommend a lovely classic novel?

[PoloM1nt]

I've just been through a phase of reading a lot of contemporary fiction and lots of it was great but I really fancy reading a good classic novel now.

I would like a book that ultimately makes me feel good once I've finished it. A nice 'curl up by the fire' type novel, along the lines of Austen, Hardy, Elliott, the Brontes etc, but I've read those.

Suggestions welcome!

Balzac... Old goriot. Will be best book ever read, zola... Nana... Stunning so juicy and exiting and exotic and wondeful.

North and south by elizabeth gaskell. Very austen-ish, i find. Favorite book.

Seconding (thirding etc) any Wilkie Collins or E.M. Forster. What about Dorothy L. Sayers? Mysteries but so much more and so elegantly written.

And have you read any D.H. Lawrence?

And TinklyLittleLaugh has excellent suggestions!

Not really classic but the Cazelet series, Elizabeth Jane Howard

Oh yes I capture the castle, really sticks in mind!

Brilliant opening. Most f scott fitzgerald but in particular... The last tycoon.

Oh god, anything by Zola! The French Dickens. Dickens with a touch of exotic. Love him.

A Town Like Alice

• 20thC but still a classic

Rebecca
Vanity fair
North and South

Oh and not sure if they count as classics but any Agatha Christie books. Especially Miss Marple.

On along I thought of balzac as French dickens but better... Zola... Incredible

I love reading classics in the autumn/winter. There's something so cosy about them. I wouldnt say my list are feel good but they are cosy. My go tos that I reread most years:-
Howard's End - E M Forster
Portrait of a Lady - Henry James
Persusion and Pride and Prejudice - JA
Tess of the D'Ubervilles - Hardy

I've also really enjoyed Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Edith Wharton, F Scott Fitzgerald.

For a slightly more modern classic you can't beat Rebecca - Daphne du maurier (or in fact any of her books).

I capture the castle

It's the perfect 'cup of tea and a fire' book

Can I point out that"A town like Alice" is definitely not comfort reading? A great novel but parts are quite harrowing. Depends on what you're looking for of course!

Silas Marner... "Eppie in da cole hole..."

I capture the castle by Dodie Foster

Second (or third) Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Chronicles.

Hardy's Mayor of Casterbridge.

Dickens' Great Expectations

Also, Gone with the Wind and, if you really want to invest the time, Tolstoy's War and Peace.

Oh yes, another vote for Silas Marner.

I was about to say gone with the the wind

**Dodie Smith not Foster 😂😂 brain fart

YY to Zola. The Ladies' Paradise tells the story of those who work in a department store in Paris in the 19th century - a classic version of Mr Selfridge - and in complete contrast Germinal by the same author is a bleak and gripping account of a small town of miners and their political struggle. Both excellent.

The Old Wives' Tale by the Edwardian author Arnold Bennett is the story of two sisters, Constance and Sophia. One marries and stays in her small northern home town to run the family draper's shop and the other escapes to a very different life in Paris. Bennett was hugely popular in his day but seems not to be widely read now. He should be.

David Copperfield and Great Expectations are fab and hilarious.
Agree with the Moonstone, Dracula...

Also the Man in the Iron Mask, or Count of Monte Cristo.

Rebecca - Daphne DuMaurier

I capture the castle
Rebecca but my cousin Rachel is even better IMO.
Persuasion - my favourite ever and so romantic
Little women (god I sob)
Cold comfort farm
Any Nancy Mitford

On the strength of this I've just bought the 1980s dvd of Silas Marner... Very excited!