What to read after Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre?

[MrsFogi]

I'm half way through Jane Eyre (so don't post any spoilers!) and read WH before that. I could not bear/understand these at school but am gripped this time around. So….what am I going to enjoy next?

LadyGlen funnily enough I don't think I ever read that one - I do have a copy somewhere I think!

It's the least depressing of the Hardy novels that I've read. Almost jolly, in parts, IIRC.
I almost went into a decline after finishing Jude

Wilkie Collins - 'No Name' is my favourite, and 'Armadale' was one of the ones of his I liked least, but he's generally a reliably good writer.

I absolutely hated, 'Wide Sargasso Sea' I'm afraid.

Yes to, 'Rebecca' and to Austen.

And has anybody mentioned, 'Frankenstein' yet?

oo Armadale is going on my list - thanks mimble

Some Mrs Gaskell -- friend and biographer of Charlotte Bronte. The biography is worth reading itself.

Try Wives and Daughters SO lovely North and South, and Mary Barton.

If you're going in a Dickens direction, Bleak House is my favourite.

Middlemarch is a masterpiece; I also rate Daniel Deronda but other people find it trickier.

Wide Sargasso Sea
South Riding
Rebecca

Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Wide Sargasso Sea
Great Expectations
Pride & Prejudice
Mill on the Floss

I was just about to recommend Elizabeth Gaskell too - Cranford's my favourite (and the BBC TV adaptation which was on a few years ago was lovely too).

Can I also recommend John Sutherland's series of books about literature (kind of popular literary criticism) - Where was Rebecca Shot? Can Jane Eyre be Happy? Is Heathcliff a murderer? They're divided into essays on one book at a time and are easy reads and great for getting you to think again about books you know and tempting you to try ones you don't.

Far From the Madding Crowd - I am not a big Hardy fan but I love this one.

Dickens is my favourite author so it is hard to choose one to recommend, but Great Expectations or David Copperfield would be a good place to start if you haven't read any of his.

George Eliot is my favourite author on the days when it isn't Dickens. Middlemarch is my favourite, but I also love Adam Bede and Felix Holt. Scenes of Clerical Life is great too - the title doesn't sound promising but it comprises three really lovely stories.

I love Trollope too - can you tell I am a Victorian fiction nut yet?

For modern novels with a Victorian or Gothic theme (not set in England though) maybe Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood or I just finished The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates, which was definitely very Gothic.

Thanks so much for all these ideas - I'm not going to be short of a book or three for a long time! Also I'm rather chuffed that for the most part they are free to download on my Kindle .

Can't believe no one has mentioned Villette narrated by yours truly :) It is just as good as Jane Eyre IMHO.

Agnes Grey
Vanity Fair
Madame Bovary
Therese Raquin

Nothing new to add really.

Persuasion definitely the best Austen.

The Tenant if Wildfell Hall is really insightful.

Dracula and Frankenstein just brilliant.

Madame Bovary I loved but disliked that I loved Emma, much like Wutherjng Heights for me in that I don't feel like I should love it.

Recently discovered actually read some Dumas and Zola and I am hooked. The Count of Monte Christo - brilliant.

I second Middlemarch and Tess of the D'urbevilles.

Middlemarch was written to be serialized in a weekly journal. Given that its huge, you get a real sense of that in the reading of it.

The gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng. A fascinating,wonderful book. A real classic.

Gone with the Wind. It's a must if you have never read it.

Ps to above. Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind - same sort of hero as Mr Rochester. Really macho"!

Another one to recommend Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. Jane Eyre is my go to book when I have nothing else to read or I want something comforting

I second Vilette.

Daphne du Maurier - My Cousin Rachel
Antony Trollope - The Palliser Novels
Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina
Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy
Not a Charles Dickens fan

How about the Poldark novels? Fabulous evocation of Cornwall in the 18th century and might be interesting to read at the same time as the new BBC adaptation later this year.

Moby Dick is a fabulous book that no one reads any more. It contains a similar wild gothicism as the Brontes plus a sense of the universe in microcosm. Utterly compelling.

Another vote for Wide Sargasso Sea. I read it in one go because I just couldn't put it down - it puts Jane Eyre in a whole new light (and I love Jane Eyre). One of the best books I've ever read.

Lucysnowe . OP, read Charlotte Bronte's best novel, Villette, next - it is astonishing.

Another vote for Persuasion and Middlemarch (along with Jane Eyre my favourite three novels). I also like a bit of tragedy (you could argue Middlemarch is pretty tragic for many of the characters) so Hardy and Zola. I'm reading Therese Raquin for the first time at the moment - had forgotten how graphic Zola is (read Germinal 20 years ago and was quite disturbed for a while).