Classic books have a reputation problem, most of it earned at school rather than by the classic novels themselves. A classic is simply a book that keeps being worth reading. Eighteen now, in three walks: the great English novels, the gothic and sensation classics that read like thrillers, and the world masterpieces every reader gets to eventually. Nothing here is homework; it's all just very good.
Editor's Picks
- Persuasion - Austen's autumnal best
- Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Hardy's heartbreaker
- Vanity Fair - the sharpest social satire
The Great English Novels
Austen to Eliot - the canon at its most purely enjoyable.
01Pride and Prejudice
Wit, pride, misjudgement and one of literature's great courtships. Austen's sharpest, most joyful comedy of manners - funnier and more modern than its reputation lets on. Read it before any adaptation.
02Great Expectations
Pip, a convict, a jilted bride and a fortune from nowhere. Dickens at his richest - funny, dark and unputdownable, and the best door into the rest of him. Dickens intended two endings, both published.
03Middlemarch
Eliot's vast, wise novel of provincial lives, thwarted hopes and ordinary goodness. Widely called the finest novel in English - daunting in size, endlessly rewarding in fact. Treat it as a season rather than a weekend, and the last hundred pages repay every hour.
04Persuasion
Anne Elliot gets a second chance at the love she was persuaded to refuse. Austen's autumnal masterpiece - quieter than Pride and Prejudice, and many readers' favourite. The Austen to read second, once Pride and Prejudice has taught you her comedy.
05Tess of the d'Urbervilles
A poor girl, a fatal name and the cruelty of respectable England. Hardy's heartbreaker - beautiful, furious and unforgettable. Bleak, so choose your moment.
06Vanity Fair
Becky Sharp claws her way up through Regency society without a single scruple. The sharpest social satire in English - and its most entertaining anti-heroine. Long and episodic, so it suits reading in instalments exactly as its first readers did.
Gothic & Sensation
The classics that read like thrillers - dread, secrets and stormy moors.
07Jane Eyre
A poor, plain, fiercely independent governess and the secret in the attic. A Gothic romance with a heroine well ahead of her time - passionate, moral and gripping still. Read it before Wide Sargasso Sea, which retells the attic from the other side.
08Wuthering Heights
Love and revenge on the wild Yorkshire moors, told by one strange, stormy imagination. Not a comfortable book - but a wholly unforgettable one. Nobody in it deserves your sympathy.
09Rebecca
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." A new bride, a dead first wife and a house full of dread. The most deliciously suspenseful of modern classics. The grandmother of every domestic thriller on this list, and still tenser than most of them.
10Dracula
Letters, diaries and ships' logs assemble the original vampire novel. Far stranger and more gripping than a century of imitations suggests. The epistolary structure makes it far more readable than its reputation suggests, and it moves quickly.
11Frankenstein
A young scientist makes a creature and refuses to love it. Written at nineteen, inventing science fiction on the way - and the creature still breaks your heart. Short, and the 1818 text is the one to seek out if you want Shelley's original.
World Classics
The masterpieces beyond Britain - translated, transporting, essential.
13Anna Karenina
A married woman falls catastrophically in love in imperial Russia. Routinely voted the greatest novel ever written - and, page for page, the most alive. Choose a modern translation; it makes the difference between a slog and a page-turner.
14Crime and Punishment
A student commits the perfect murder and discovers there's no such thing. The great psychological novel - feverish, gripping and strangely funny. A modern translation makes all the difference.
15One Hundred Years of Solitude
Seven generations of the Buendía family in a town where it rains flowers. The masterpiece of magical realism - dazzling, dreamlike, unrepeatable. Keep the family tree bookmarked.
16The Great Gatsby
Gatsby, Daisy and the green light across the bay. The great American novel at a slim, perfect 180 pages - everyone's second favourite book for a reason. Short enough for a single afternoon.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which classic should I read first?
Pride and Prejudice is the most purely enjoyable; Rebecca reads like a modern thriller; The Great Gatsby takes one evening. Start where the appetite is.
Are the Russians as hard as they look?
Longer, not harder - Anna Karenina is gossip of the highest order and Crime and Punishment is a psychological thriller. Get a modern translation and dive in.
What edition should I buy?
Any readable one to start. For keepers and gifts, Penguin Clothbound and Vintage Classics pair good introductions with covers worth shelf space.
Which classics are actually short?
A good many, and they are the sensible way in. Several of the most famous nineteenth and twentieth century novels run under 200 pages, and a short classic finished in a weekend does far more for your confidence than a doorstop abandoned at page eighty.
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