What classics do you love?

[TheDropBear]

I love a free kindle book but some of them are pretty bad. So after one too many trashy romance books I've decided to work my way through the free public domain books. These are all published before a certain date (1920's I think?) so there's a massive choice with a lot of classics.

So far I've been taking it easy and gone for children's books (Alice in Wonderland and The Jungle Book). Just started Emmeline Pankhurst's autobiography which is interesting so far.

Think I need a bit of a push to get into the heavier stuff so what would you recommend?

Jane Austen - love them :)

Wuthering Heights
Great Expectations

Jane Eyre
Great Expectations
A Room With A View

To Kill a Mockingbird
Pride and Prejudice

Cold Comfort Farm.

Vanity Fair. Gossipy and addictive.

Anything Charles Dickens, Bronte, plus the picture of Dorian Gray. ( plus some Shakespeare )

All Jane Austen
All Wilkie Collins
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
Jane Eyre
Madame Bovary - Flaubert
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
Dracula

Yy to Dracula. It's fabulous :) I listened to it on audio book as well and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion and Emma are my favourites.

Anna Karenina.

The Woman in White.

Dickens - I like Great Expectations, Bleak House and Tale of Two Cities

The Mill on the Floss

'The Count of Monticristo'.

Absolutely gripping; I couldn't put it down.

Villette is my favourite book. I'd say anything by the Bronte's is a good bet.

Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy are good. Also if you haven't read it, I really enjoyed the Great Gatsby.

I loved Villette too, and I agree about the Brontes. The Tenant of WIldfell Hall was rather a revelation to me as it seemed to address very modern issues like a woman managing on her own, an abusive and alcoholic husband and wonderful descriptions of every day life.

Wuthering Heights is something to read again and again don't you think? Jane Eyre is compelling as well, though I do not enjoy it quite as much.

Phantom of the Opera

I read a lot of Children's Classics as well. What Katy Did, Secret Garden, etc.

I'm currently working my way through a complete works of L M Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables) which I think was less than a quid.

Rebecca. I love the fact that the entire book is about a spectre.

I loved the Tenant of Wildfell Hall, it's such a shame that Anne doesn't get as much recognition as her sisters. Yes to rereading Wuthering Heights, such a great book. I always think a book improves on the second reading, I think you get so much more from it when you're not rushing to see what happens.

If you want something short to get you started OP I would recommend The Yellow Wallpaper, very quick to read but utterly brilliant, disturbing and thought provoking.

'The Count of Monte Christo'.

Absolutely gripping; I couldn't put it down.

My favourite book ever by a dead writer.

I would also suggest:-

Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Hardy (I will never ever recover)
The Dram Shop/L'Assomoir by Zola

Austen/Bronte go without saying IMO and Austen in particular is so accessible and easy.

Dickens not my favourite as I slog through Old Curiosity Shop, although Great Expectations was fabulous.

Wiuthering heights, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Moll Flanders and A Room With a Veiw are my favourites that I go back to again and again.

*Wuthering

Middlemarch - George Elliott (thumping tale about the residents of a town in mid England)
Vanity Fair - William Thackery (my best comfort read)
L'Assomoir by Emile Zola (the rise and fall of a young laundress and her lovers)
New Grub Street George Gissing
The Netherworld by George Gissing (heartbreaking- one of my all time favourite books)

Three Men in a Boat is good fun. If choosing an Austen, I'd go with Persuasion.

Evelina, Wuthering Heights, Middlemarch and Frankenstein.

Oooh I love a classic! i'm a huge fan of american lit, so this year i've read house of mirth and age of innocence, think new york society shennanigans. I read To Kill A Mockingbird which is as incredible as it is claimed, The Awakening by Kate Chopin (really nice, easy read), Little Women, Tender is the Night, and last year I read Breakfast at Tiffany's, Capote's short stories, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, A Raisin In The Sun, The Bell Jar, The Scarlet Letter.

In terms of non-American lit, Austen, Rebecca, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Phantom of the Opera,