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!

For a fairly obscure but lovely book that I discovered by accident and have read over and over, try Cynthia's Way by Mrs Alfred Sidgwick. Utterly charming.

I Capture the Castle
My Cousin Rachel
Rebecca
Jamaica Inn
The Great Gatsby (best novel ever!)
Evelyn Waugh's Men At Arms trilogy
Brideshead

@AppropriateAdult - I just have to read a novel of that title by an author of that name. How simply mah-vellous!

Not in line with the OP’s full-on Eng Lit preferences, but I can’t leave out Diary of a Provincial Lady from this thread. It never seems to get much love round here despite being the most Mumsnetty book series ever.

East Lynne by Mes Henry Wood

Sorry! Mrs Henry Wood

Brideshead, Rebecca and the secret history is a trilogy that would keep you glued to your fireside for days.

So pleased to see so much deserved love for I capture the castle!

Also diary of a provincial - agree pp!

LOVE Nancy mitford.

These are all perfect for when you’ve read the Austen/Eliot/dickens lot.

Great thread. And nice to see so many Persuasion fans.

@Skippety I read ICTC for the first time this year. Somehow missed it as a teen (not sure how, I would have loved it. I'd heard the middle section was a bit baggy and dull. I kept reading wondering when the baggy boring middle section was going to arrive and it never did. Gorgeous novel.

@Rainatnight - Persuasion is fabulous. Wentworth is definitely the JA hero I love best.

The Fortnight in September by R C Sheriff
I Capture the Castle

Return of the native by Thomas Hardy.

Also agree with anything by Anthony Trollope.

Madam Bovary

Anything by Daphne DM, especially Rebecca.

The Loving Spirit by Daphne du Maurier and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (so prophetic, socially - it was written in the 1930s. I read it in the 90s and one character was wearing velvet shorts and tights - exactly what my colleague was wearing at the time!).

@ElizaPancakes At last!!! Another Fannie Flagg fan! 'Standing in the Rainbow' is just beautiful. And then when you realise her other books have recurring characters, she's the gift that keeps on giving.

Madame Bovary.

Another vote for Rebecca, very readable

Anything by Daphne DM, especially Rebecca.

I mean, I LOVE Daphne DM. My favourite author by far. But her books don't make me feel all warm and fuzzy after reading them!

Rebecca - gloomy ending is literally the first chapter.
My Cousin Rachel - same.
The King's General - I can only read that book when I know I have the mental headspace to be really sad for several days afterwards!

I try to avoid spoilers, but I find DDM is the absolute queen of writing books where the actual plot hardly matters at all, because the journey and perception of the characters is so powerful that you could tell me the whole plot and the enjoyment wouldn't be spoiled.

How about Wives and Daughters? Great character observations, nice heroine, you just need fair warning that Gaskell died before she finished. (I was bloody dumbstruck when I found out it finished there!)

Loving all the recommendations for Persuasion and Trollope.

I love Trollope. The Warden is not my favourite, but it's the best place to start as it's the first of the Barchester Chronicles and the last of those is probably my favourite book. Other good ones to try are He Knew He Was Right And The Claverings.

Rebecca West is another of my favourite authors and I especially love The Return of the Soldier and the The Fountain Overflows/This Real Night/Cousin Rosamund trilogy.

You could also try Elizabeth Goudge. I've enjoyed The Dean's Watch, City of Bells, and Towers in the Mist.

Other recommendations: anything by Winifred Holtby, The Raj Quartet by
Paul Scott, and anything by Dickens, Hardy and George Eliot that you haven't already read!

This has inspired me to do some re-reading!

@EcocabbyRickShaw I cannot rave about her enough! Standing in the Rainbow is one of my favourites as well - although Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man is brilliant too.

I love that even the sad bits are written in such a way that they’re not upsetting. She’s masterful.

She is masterful – and hilarious. Last year I found that there were 3 Fannie Flagg books I didn't know about. I ordered all 3 and now I'm pacing myself. I can only read one when I've really, really deserved. (So there are still 2 left)

@thecatsthecats yes as per my update, I have read Wives and Daughters and loved it- but I know what you mean about the end!!! I have now ordered North & South.

I'm going to go against the grain here but I couldn't STAND I Capture the Castle! Read it a few years ago now and hated it! Can't put my finger on why but for some reason felt the relationship was creepy and couldn't shift that feeling!

I also find DH Lawrence sex descriptions too "male gazey" for my liking!

Absolutely love Hardy and Elliott, and of course Austen.

Btw as an aside- has anyone seen the ITV Andrew Davies version of Sanditon? JA wrote the first few chapters before she died, basically set up all the characters and the premise but nothing more. He has gone quite crazy with the storyline and it's quite trashy and looks cheaply made in an ITV kind of way, but also quite bingey!

I loved Diary of a Provinicial Lady, metempsychosis! And there were one or two sequels, weren't there? Great fun.

Op, I was so thrilled by your thread that I think I was wilfully blind to your feelgood criteria - sorry!
In which case, a thousand times Georgette Heyer - unless you have already read and didn't like?