To ask what your favourite classic novel is?

[SpectacleLectacle]

I have a plan to read some classics this summer I’ve never got round to... what’s your absolute favourite classic novel? And why?

I guess I’m thinking mainly of those that would be in the ‘Classics’ (in terms of fiction rather than the subject!) section of a bookshop but feel free to diverge from that

All the stuff I read at GCSE/A level

Animal Farm
Of Mice and Men
To Kill a Mocking Bird
Macbeth

I have re-read so many times over the last 25 years.

Of those mentioned, Persuasion, Dracula (which I studied at university and is much richer than people give it credit for), The Moonstone, and The Master and Margarita are all favourites.

My favourite of all is A Room With A View by EM Forster.

For modern classics I love The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, Possession by AS Byatt, and (this will be a classic one day) The Bone People by Keri Hulme.

Anna Karenina is better than War and Peace. Villette is better than any other Bronte.

Edith Wharton's Roman Fever
J Austen Persuasion
If you have the time try War and peace!

Wuthering Heights
Voyage in the Dark

Love miserable stuff!

I echo the recommendations of the anti red and Jane Austen. Also agree that Vanity Fair is a terrific read.

One of my personal favourites is The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford. All the characters are unreliable liars and it isn't a happy book but I love it!

Pride and Prejudice
Vanity Fair
Little Dorrit (most Dickens)
Lord of the Flies
The Portrait of Dorian Grey
Moby Dick
Riders of the Purple Sage - it’s a classic genre changing western
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe (A more modern classic)
Heart of Darkness
A Day in the Life of Ivan of Ivan Denisovich

Things Fall Apart is such an excellent book. Our copy has disappeared.

This is a great thread - thanks OP - I am noting some of these for my 'to read' list.

@GrouchyKiwi
That is a shame. I have it on my Kindle.

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Both my favourites from about age 12

To Kill A Mocking Bird

Brave New World - Huxley foretelling virtual reality, test tube babies, genetic engineering and the worship of the car. His version of a covertly operated dystopia Ruled by social manipulation is much more akin to the direction of the World than the fear and violence fuelled one envisaged by Orwell in 1984.

The Tempest - Shakespeare- most of Shakespeare I would say see rather than read but there’s something very much different about this last play.

Not a novel but I would recommend Blake’s Marriage of heaven and Hell

Wuthering Heights

Not early classics but Agatha Christie Poirot books are good. Also Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes- hound of the Baskervilles is good as is the entire series - much better than any TV adaption.

Any poems from the Romantic period. I like STColeridges narrative poems/ballads - I think Christabel is the superior one - maybe because it’s unfinished so you can complete it how you want.

Emma. It properly made me laugh out loud at times.

So much love for Vanity Fair here. I didn't get on with it due to wanting to punch Becky Sharp.

I totally agree about Sherlock Holmes @Lifeisgenerallyfun - the original novels and short stories are just wonderful.

Pride and prejudice

I’ve recently read these post-war ‘classics’ as part of my English Lit degree and loved them, especially the first two:

Blow Your House Down by Pat Barker
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes
The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi
Generation X by Douglas Coupland

Anything by Jane Austen, I like Emma best.
Little Women series
Three Men in a Boat (not forgetting Montmorency the dog)
Lord Peter Wimsey books of Dorothy L Sayers
The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler

I decided one year to only read books from the 1000 books to read before you die list. Started with ones my family already owned. I was pleasantly surprised at how good the Godfather was. I lot of people consider the film a classic but having read the book, it was a massive letdown.

Another vote for Wilkie Collins, I love his work. Besides the famous ones Man and Wife (available on kindle) was a page turner.
For comedy check out Thorn Smith (kindle again), especially Skin and Bones and The Stray Lamb. Be warned though, his work is not very PC.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck. It's a proper page turner, I couldn't put it down. Also Bleak House. It was originally released in chapters in a newspaper I think so lots of cliffgangers. Cold comfort farm and I capture the castle are both easy reads with fabulous protagonists.

Oh, I forgot Cranford!

The Great Gatsby
Jekyll and Hyde
Jane Eyre and Villette - can't choose between them
Pride & Prejudice, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion - can't choose between these, either
Of Mice and Men
To Kill A Mockingbird

Another vote for The Great Gatsby - hence the name!

So many of those already mentioned.

Plus The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope - a cracking read - A panorama of Victorian society, warts and all.

Also Trollope, The Warden, followed by Barchester Towers - utterly different but another absolute favourite re-read.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, the Girls of Slender Means, and The Ballad of Peckham Rye, by Muriel Spark.

Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome - I still think this is one of the funniest books ever in the English language.

Another vote for Cranford, Sherlock Holmes and the Dorothy L Sayers.

I would also add in the more modern writers Tolkien and John Le Carré