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

'A little life is definitely s modern classic'....

No it isn't. What nonsense! It's a pile of masochistic unresearched wank.

Woman in white by Willie Collins
Precious bane by Mary Webb
Middle March
Pride and prejudice
Jude the obscure

I really enjoyed Call of the Wild.

Sense and Sensibility is my favourite Austen read and I'll give another vote to Wuthering Heights.

I must confess I never finished Count of Monte Cristo and now I'm very curious to know the Real Ending! I doubt I'll get chance to re read it any time soon, might have to give audio books a try.

....and I wouldn't put Precious Bane on a list of 'classic' novels either no offence. Wasn't it a kind of pot boiler' of its day and the kind of thing that Stella Gibbons was mocking with 'cold comfort farm'?
People seem to confuse 'classic' with 'old'.
Or 'thick' in the case of 'a little life'.

To be honest as much as I love reading I always feel let down and underwhelmed by the majority of the classics.

Ones I had enjoyed are
Wuthering heights - love this
A Christmas Carol
The Great Gatsby
Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde
I absolutely hated far from the madding crowd.

I love most of the kids classics and find I get more out of them as an adult than I did as a child
Alice in Wonderland
The secret garden
Peter Pan that sort of thing

Anything by Wilkie Collins. For 150year old books, they are so fresh and gripping. Particularly No Name.

My joint favourite is The Last Chronicle of Barsetshire, but you can't read that without first reading the previous five. The first two are The Warden and Barchester Towers, which various people have already mentioned. Trollope has a wonderfully accessible style, I think. And a good place to start for a novice 19th century novel reader. If you find you like the Barsetshire novels there are many more of his novels to recommend, including the six Palliser novels.

George Eliot: Middlemarch and Silas Marner are great, but I wouldn't start with either. Middlemarch is off-puttingly long and Silas Marner takes ages to get going. Adam Bede and The Mill on the Floss are better ones to start with.

Dickens: I love them all except The Pickwick Papers. My favourites are Bleak House and A Tale of Two Cities, but I'd start with Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, or Nicholas Nickleby.

The Brontës: I confess that I don't like Wuthering Heights at all, and I'm not really a fan of Jane Eyre either. I'd start with The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone and The Woman in White are both great. I'd start with the latter.

Hardy: I love them all, but would start with Far From the Madding Crowd, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Under the Greenwood Tree or The Mayor of Casterbridge. Stay away from Jude The Obscure until you're sure you like Hardy!

Jane Austen: again I love them all. My favourite is Persuasion (my joint favourite novel of all time), but you could start with any except Mansfield Park.

European novelists: I wouldn't read any until you have a good few English novels under your belt. In particular I'd stay away from Crime and Punishment and Les Misérables for the time being. They're great reads though. I'd also leave Anna Karenina and War and Peace until later. Ditto Madame Bovary.

More modern classics: I second people's recommendations of: Rebecca, A Suitable Boy, and especially Captain Correlli's Mandolin.

I also love Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, the 'This Dark Night' trilogy and The Return of the Soldier, both by Rebecca West, The Call of the Wild by Jack London, My Family and Other Animals (and sequels) by Gerald Durrell and I have a real soft spot for Watership Down. In fact I love a lot of children's books, but that's a whole other thread.

Not at home at the moment, so can't cast a quick eye over my bookshelves to see what I've missed. There will be many.

Happy reading!

Great thread!

North and South.
A Christmas Carol (short, but think still counts!)
The Bell Jar / Ariel
Vanity Fair
Pygmalion
Hangover Square
The Golden Notebook
The Secret Garden
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Room with a View
The Secret History
Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Dislike Hardy, except Far from the Madding Crowd.

Jane Eyre
Dracula
Persuasion
Anna Karenina
Brave New World

War of the Worlds
Mrs Dalloway, read with The Hours
Big Sur
Handmaid’s Tale

The Time Machine is amazing.

Dracula
The fall of the House of Usher (assuming it counts even though it’s a short story).

Wuthering Heights, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it!

The Woman in White- Wilkie Collins.
Count Fosco is a fantastic villain.

The Grapes of Wrath.

I also like Anthony Trollope.

Sense and sensibility

Love, love, love Persuasion.

For those who have mentioned Wuthering Heights (Withering Looks as its known in our house) its on tv today at at 1.40pm, Sony Classic Movies, Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier.

Never really understood the tragic love story bit, to me its full of death and revenge.

Pride and Prejudice.

Never really understood the tragic love story bit, to me its full of death and revenge.

This is the accurate précis imho.

OP, can I ask why you want to read the classics? Is it because you want a good story, or because they are "improving"? I've read loads of the suggestions above (A level and degree reading) but a lot of them are hard work, and that's not what I want in my spare time. These days I have a rule that if I don't enjoy a book by the first 50 pages then I don't bother finishing it. I call this my Room with a View rule; I got to the end of that and realised how many hours of my life I'd wasted, when there are so many other books out there that are more to my taste.

I don't read Dickens because his use of colloquial speech irritates me.

I struggle to connect with anything anguished, so that rules the Brontes out.

I'd rather see Shakespeare performed than read it.
I can't be arsed with weak feminine characters, swept along by fate, so that writes off Hardy.

I do love the funny and observant stuff. Cold Comfort Farm. Anything by Austen. The Diary of a Provincial Lady by EM Delafield. Jeeves and Wooster.

I recently read The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and was astonished by the quality of the writing, and how atmospheric it was. Similarly, Harry's Game.

Jane Eyre. Always makes me weep.

So many! Classic as in 19th century, some, of my favourites are Wuthering Heights, Bleak House, Daniel Deronda, Persuasion, Our Mutual Friend - but I do like and love lot of them! Feel like there should be a Hardy on that list, but my mind has, gone blank other than Jude the Obscure, which is a great novel, but distressing!

I Very much like the sensation novels of that period too by Willie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Bradden.

Modern classics, I love Daphne Du Maurier.

@TheWernethWife I agree on Wuthering Heights and its reputation of a tragic love story - it's very dark and full of cycles of violence, misery and abuse. I like that though!

oooh...so many to choose from.

Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre definitely up there.

Fond of Great Expectations and Tess of the D'urbervilles

If I may push into classic foreign literature then 100 Years of Solitude and House of the Spirits would probably be top of my all time lists before the others mentioned.

Another vote for Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. An interesting storyline, and a fascinating insight into what life is like in a big house with lots of servants.

but a lot of them are hard work, and that's not what I want in my spare time
Really? I don't think of any of those mentioned here as being hard work with the exception of James Joyce. Seems a bit strange coming from someone with a degree in literature! If anything, I have found that I have got less interested in "light reading" with age - I don't have the time to waste on fluff!

I do agree on not persevering with books you don't enjoy though although sometimes it's just the wrong time: when Wolf Hall came out I just couldn't get into it. I read it last month and I couldn't put it down! There's a lot of lo e for Jane Eyre on this thread which has never really appealed to me but maybe I should give it another chance.