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?

Eugenie Grandet and Cousine Bette, both by Honoré de Balzac - fantastic reads.
Jane Eyre
Tender Is The Night, or This Side of Paradise or short stories by Scott Fitzgerald
Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Just finished a Christmas Carol with my year sixes, 95% of whom have English as a second language. I was AMAZED how they understood the language, images, themes, etc. Will be definitely be looknig for more classical literature for next year.

Far From the Madding Crowd and The Picture of Dorian Gray. Also enjoyed War and Peace although it helps to have a good translation!

Jane Eyre
The Professor
Great Expectations
Anne of the island

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford. I was put off it for ages, assuming that it was a war story - it turned out to be an amazing psychological drama with a surprisingly modern feel. Absolutely gripped I was.

Lots of those above ( especialy all Jane Austen and Middlemarch )

How about Elizabeth Gaskell? ..try Wives and Daughters and North and South
Then there is Anthony Trollope - definately try The Warden and Barchester Towers .. the first two of the Barchester novels

His Palliser novels are also great ..

Hardy - The Mayor of Casterbridge is my favourite (also Tess but I had to do that TWICE at both school and college!)

Nicholas Nickleby
The Woman in White - one of those books where I find I'm grasping the pages really hard!

Another Villette lover here.

Really enjoyed Madame bovary

Vanity Fair is one of my favorite classics!

The bell jar
Tender is the night
An American tragedy
Grapes of wrath
The awakening
Moby Dick
Executioner's song
The New York trilogy
In Cold blood
Or something less highbrow like Gone with the wind?

Madame Bovary and Emile Zola books are good too

Edith Wharton: The Custom of the Country.
Henry James: The Wings of the Dove; Washington Square; Daisy Miller; What Maisie Knew; The Turn of the Screw.

Katherine Mansfield: The Garden Party and Other Stories; In a German Pension.

Another Anthony Trollope recommendation. The Way We Live Now is a great read. His characters are warts-and-all and his humanity is very lovable.

Also Jane Austen's Emma and Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm.

Persuasion, Tess, The Great Gatsby, Great Expectations

Age of innocence by Edith Warton, I read it at least once a year ( there is also a fabulous film adaptation by Martin Scorcese!)

Brighton Rock, Graham Greene (actually any Graham Greene)
For Whom The Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway

There's a theme isn't there

Pride and Predjudice
Great Expectations

Testimony of Two Men - Taylor Calwell (Love that book and love Jonathan)

A Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovitch - amazing depiction of life in a gulag but short and very well written.

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins.

I like some of the classics but don't find them gripping. Except for the Count of Monte Cristo, which is simply brilliant.

Great Expectations is a treat, but Bleak House is my personal favourite. I love to hate the despicable Mr Tulkinghorn!

I Capture the Castle.
Been a keen reader since childhood, but got to the age of 52 without reading this magical, innocent, very funny book, when I happened upon it on an Amazon recommended list (something I would usually ignore).
I want everyone to read it.

I second anything by Edith Wharton. The House of Mirth was relentlessly sad.

I love all the free classics on Kindle.

I am re-reading The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett right now.
I have loads of George Gissing stuff, New Grub Street being my favourite.
Madame Bovary is a thing of beauty.
Anthony Trollope. Prolific writer so loads by him.
The Forsythe Saga by John Galsworthy (it's been dramatised twice, though I have yet to see these).

Vanity Fair is a very modern classic; the story of a clever and ambitious girl, without scruples, works through the ages. Lots of great classics were spoiled for me by A level literature.

Now I tend to read crime, history, politics, trash and non-fiction. There are loads of good recommendations here. You can't go very wrong if you try some.