Classic literature what next

[Enko]

I wondered if some.of you would recommend some more classic literature for me. I've recently read through

Jane Austin & Bronte sisters. Now having finished wuthering Heights. I'm looking for the next book but feeling unsure.

I dont want to go to Dickens or Shakespeare I seem to enjoy female writers a lot but not stuck on that. I loved Sherlock Holmes. Really don't want to go as "heavy" as Virginia Woolf.

Any ideas?

Another vote for Frankenstein, one of my favourite classics.

I made reading the classics a resolution a few years ago and am so pleased I did! So many I didn’t expect to like but absolutely loved like Madam Bovary and Frankenstein.

Loving all the suggestions here with tons to add to my list.

Second Thackeray. I’m currently reading and enjoying Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge and before that really enjoyed Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte.

Other unexpected treats were Greyfriar’s Bobby, Brighton Rock (Graeme Greene), Huckleberry Finn, Candide (Voltaire) and Diary of a Nobody (last two really funny comedies).

enjoy!

My favourite Hardy is Jude the Obscure, but it’s pretty depressing.

I really enjoyed Trollope’s The Way We live Now, really relevant to modern life.

I’m reading Huckleberry Finn at the moment (so I can then read James by Percival Everett).

Gone With the Wind is a masterpiece.

I second Elizabeth Gaskell. Very like Austen but she's writing about the industrial revolution and the effects on women and the way of life; set in the North more than the polite south and it's dirter and grittier and life is a bit harder adn less polite and fewer happy ever afters htan Austen..

I really didn't like it... I get why it's a classic but it's not for me.

When I was in my early 20s my.then boyfriend went through a Dickens phase so I read a lot of them back then as they were free and available. I didn't enjoy one of them. I got them all but its not my style of writing I dont feel carried away into that book. Due to this I say no Dickens

Ive read

The Pickwick Papers
Oliver Twist
David Copperfield
Bleak House
Little Dorritt
A Tale of Two Cities
Great Expectations

So I feel I Can say I have given it a good go..

@Loubylie I may try Madame Bovary
I have heard of that.

@RedHelenB & @TimeForTeaAndToast I've read a bit of Thackeray mostly I have to admit due to the amazing restaurant in town named after him. I liked them so may be worth looking further. Ive read Vanity Fair and the Newcomers. I could 100% explore further there.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit. Read all 3 but great list.

@ZombieVom I rwad huckleberry finn as a early teenager so I may read it again to see how I feel about it as an adult. Unfamiliar with the rest of your unexpected list so I am adding those

@EmmaStone Gone with the wind is amazing but another one I read as a teenager.. but may revisit that one too as I'm sure I missed stuff there I think I was 14. I had to take it out for a 2nd month in the library.

@Jux I have added more Elizabeth Gaskell to my list as I do like her.

To everyone thank you for the responses I am enjoying reading these a lot so exciting to have a list.

The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.
All about Mr Rochester’s first wife.

Loved it.

Edith Wharton is superb. I saw a PP mention Custom of the Country: it’s a fantastic novel. I’d also recommend Elizabeth Bowen, especially The House in Paris, and Sylvia Townsend Warner, perhaps starting with Lolly Willowes or The Corner That Held Them. Anthony Trollope is also a great call. Dr Thorne is an all time favourite.’and Gaskell’s North and South is a cracker of a read. Enjoy!

Agree with PPs Elizabeth Gaskell in particular
Winifred Holtby
John Steinbeck
Black Beauty

Some American modern classics:
The bell jar
A good man is hard to find
The heart is a lonely hunter
Catcher in the rye

Two more american modern ones:
Brokeback mountain
The power of the dog

Another vote for Edith Wharton here!

Dd1 is named.after The Catcher in the rye. Holden says "She is the coolest sister in the world"

Unsure her siblings agree but they do love her 😁

I'm realising reading the suggestions that the librarian I befriended as a 10 year old really steered me well on classic. Without I was aware I was reading them.

I grew up in Scandinavia for those of you thinking "how could you not" I also read a great deal of Scandinavian classics that I was familiar with. Astrid Lindgreen is my all time favourite author. May start a tread on that subject..

I don't think it's been mentioned, but I would suggest my all time favourite book The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford. It's not about war btw.

I would also second The Diary of a Nobody and The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton.

And for something completely different, Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

Thank you for reminding me of The Good Soldier! I read it many years ago and admired it and I think now is the moment to pick it up again.

'War and Peace' (should keep you occupied for a
while!) 'Anna Karenina' Both Tolstoy.
But you weren't moved by Dickens 'Tale of Two Cities' etc etc so maybe not.

I've read Ivanhoe. It was a christmas present from my aunt when I was 9 or 10 I liked it a lot.

I read Ana karena as a early teenager. I'm sure most of it passed me by. I have considered rereading it. But not feeling strongly about it

Everything by F Scott Fitzgerald. I loved them all

and Therese Raquin by Emile Zola

I second this. Love it. Not hard work at all and wonderful.

I also would recommend the Russians. Starting off with anything by Dostoyevsky -except for The Idiot, which is his only book I have had to abandon as it keeps getting longer the more I power through it.

Saki's short stories are very enjoyable, funny and spooky and give a fascinating insight into Edwardian Britain.

Also Kipling, Kim is wonderful and his short stories have some fantastic female characters.

Not sure if it is a classic but Forever Amber ❤️
Also Travels with my Aunt
Anything by Somerset Maughan
Bronte: Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Brave New World
and again, not sure if classics but Nevil Shute is wonderful as are the original Fleming Bond books

Frankenstein.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.