What are your top three classics?

[tbain]

What are your top three classic books?

I have found it difficult to narrow it down to three but my favourites are:

Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte.

Tess of the Durbervilles- Thomas Hardy.

Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte.

[prospero]

Ack! I hate Jane Eyre with a passion! But I agree with your other Bronte choice. So I'd say:

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
The Iliad - Homer

[tbain]

Ack! I hate Jane Eyre with a passion! But I agree with your other Bronte choice. So I'd say:

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
The Iliad - Homer

Anna Karenina is brilliant, I have not read that for a lot of years, might read it again sometime.

[prospero]

Thackeray was once asked what were the three best novels and he replied, "Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina."

[ii]

The beauty of Anna Karenina is that everything in it makes sense. There's a reason for everything that happens.

I'd go with...
The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde
House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

[Echo]

Here are mine!

Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Persuasion by Jane Austen

I probably read all of these at least once a year, and I never get bored with them! :mrgreen:

[Kylie]

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Dracula by Bram Stoker

[Kell]

I only really started exploring the classics over the last couple of years, so I'm way behind on this and only have a handful to consider. Of those I've read, I'd probably go with the following as my topthree (but these would be subject to change as I read more!):

In no particular order:
Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

[kb.marsh]

I'm not much of a classics reader but:
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

[ii]

I'm not much of a classics reader but:
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

Try Edith Wharton, she's brilliant! I think you might like The House of Mirth, based on the three you listed.

[kb.marsh]

Thanks, I'll look out for it

[ii]

Do. Oh, but make sure you get some Kleenex. Just a friendly advice assuming you're like me and cry watching The Lion King. Let me know what you think, as I loved that book, so I'm interested if others have similar or opposite reactions to it.

[kernow_reader]

Try Edith Wharton, she's brilliant!

My favourite Edith Wharton novel is "Ethan Frome".
Very readable and one of her shorter novels.
A plan gone wrong if ever there was.

[Freewheeling Andy]

How are we defining "classics" again? My guess is "part of the canon" and "pre-world war one", are probably the two criteria - post WWI and you begin to get into the realms of stylistically modern fiction.

Anyway,

1 - War
2 - And
3 - Peace

[kernow_reader]

What are your top three classic books?

English Classics
Russian Clasics
French Classics

[ii]

I haven't gotten my hands on that one, yet. I did enjoy Age of Innosence very much.

[Angel]

In no particular order:-

Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

[nursenblack]

My top three favorites:

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen

I'm in a classic reading mood lately so maybe my top three may change one day.

[Tiger]

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

[Sarahrob]

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

I used to love this book. I had a really tattered copy that somehow lost it's cover, but I loved it. I was gutted when my mum finally made me throw it away!

Today's favourites for me are:

Gaskell, North and South
Bronte, Jane Eyre
Austen, Persuasion

[prospero]

Anyone remember the Black Beauty theme tune? Or am I showing my age?

Doo doo doo doo doo doo...no wait, that's Last of the Summer Wine. Hold on.

Daa daa daa daa daa daa daa daa daa daa daa...

Anyone?

[Sarahrob]

Good as it was, it never lived up to the all-time classic that was the Heidi theme tune :D

[Gyre]

Its only over the last year or so that I have started reading classics, so my favourites are limited:)

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
2. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
3. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

http://bestsmileys.com/reading/3.gif

[Icecream]

Good as it was, it never lived up to the all-time classic that was the Heidi theme tune :D
I agree with that!

[shelbel]

This is a hard one, there are way too many great classic works to just narrow down to three. Already the English, Russian and the French have been thoroughly covered. Maybe I can contribute a few American Classic's.

1. Moby Dick by Hermman Melville.
2. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
3. Call of the wild by Jack London.

[FishAndChips]

Anyone remember the Black Beauty theme tune? Or am I showing my age?

Doo doo doo doo doo doo...no wait, that's Last of the Summer Wine. Hold on.

Daa daa daa daa daa daa daa daa daa daa daa...

Anyone?

Ah yes - the theme tune that IS Sunday morning. Used to love that programme :)

[Antoinette]

It is difficult to narrow it down to 3, but;

The Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas
The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
Vanity Fair - WM Thackeray

[SusieQ]

Pride & Prejudice
Sense & Sensibility
Emma

[elizabeth Chadwick]

The collected Ghost Stories of M R James
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Conan Doyle

[teddy collector]

Its almost impossible to limit it to 3 with the selectionof classics to choose from...I haven't read one in a while but recently I went through a phase of watching classic movies and it awakened the urge to start reading them again...realistically it will be after the summer before I get to start. So going on memory my top 3 would have to be Jane Eyre(always no one), Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion:tease::doh: I know it's childish but I love adding these funny little guys:friends3:

[Ruth]

Persuasion, by Jane Austen
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

[JudyB]

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

[princessponti]

I read A Christmas Carol every year to get in the festive spirit.... Wuthering Heights is one of my favourites (..we went to Yorkshire in May so I re-read then :) ).... Jane Austin's Persuasion blew me away last year... and that's my three!!!

...and as ever... the BCF has inspired me to buy more books, I've just picked up the Jane Austin collection for reading :)

[sloth]

In no particular order...

Vanity Fair
Pride and Prejudice
The Moonstone

Although I'm really much happier with things after 1920 or so...

[poppy]

Howard's End or A Room With A View by E.M.Forster

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

[Tiresias]

I'm not sure precisely what you mean by classic, but...

Ulysses.
Wuthering Heights.
Moby Dick.

[pontalba]

Jane Eyre
Gone With the Wind
Black Beauty

[rupup nelah]

Jude the Obscure - Hardy
The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
The Way We Live Now - Trollope

[Pilgrim]

Well, I loved Tale of Two Cities and from there, though I haven't read enough to be a fair judge, I guess Jane Eyre and Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Too bad Gentlemen and Players isn't a classic yet.

I completely forgot about Oscar Wilde. I can't pick off hand. Just him.

[hot_wheels]

Reading Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane -- good and has value beyond quality of writing, though not my fav.

Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien

[KW]

A Christmas Carol

Jane Eyre

The Great Gatsby

[Bellatrix]

Top three at the moment

Bleak House
Woman in White
Vanity Fair

[AWoolford]

Top three classics hey, well since I have just begun reading the classics I have very few to choose from.

A Passage to India
Oliver Twist
Typhoon - Conrad Joseph

[bev]

In no particular order
1. Fanny Hill
2. Bleak House
3.The Count of Monte Cristo

[Sedge]

Of the 5 I've read so far:

1. The Count Of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (which I'm reading at the moment)
2. The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
3. Selected Short Stories - Guy De Maupassant

[Jo-Bridge]

Rebecca- Dapne Du maurier
To kill a Mockingbird- Harper lee
The Great Gastsby- F Scott Fitzgerald

I'm pretty sure they're classics!

[SaraPepparkaka]

I have given this some thought and I ended up with the following three:

Wuthering heights- Emily Brontë
A Christmas Carol- Charles Dickens
Kristin Lavransdatter- Sigrid Undset

There were at least two I considered for the top three also, The portrait of Dorian Gray and one of Selma Lagerlöfs books, perhaps the one about Gösta Berling (I wonder what that is called in English?).

[scottishbookworm]

1. Mrs DAlloway Virginia woolf
2. sense and sensibility Jane austin
3. the importance of being ernest oscar wilde

[Lukeozade100]

Well I have read very few classic classics, so this will probably change very swiftly but in no paticular order at the moment it is;

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Silas Marner by George Eliot
A Room With A View by E.M. Forster

[myosotis]

1. Pride and Prejudice
2. Jane Eyre
3. To kill a mockingbird.

Yum.

[Lindsay]

Persuasion
Moby Dick
Anna Karenina

[kb.marsh]

1. Pride and Prejudice
2. Jane Eyre
3. To kill a mockingbird.

Yum.

I love this little list - very similar to mine :) I must read some more classics soon

[Ben Mines]

Moby Dick, Don Quixote and Frankenstein. (A revolutionary novel like Ulysses should not be given the staid label "classic", otherwise it would top the list).

[lexi]

Crime and punishment - Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy

Great expectations - Charles Dickens

Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

:readingtwo: :blush:

[jenmck]

"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
"The Haunted Bookshop" by Christopher Morley
"Gaudy Night" by Dorothy L. Sayers.

Okay, maybe the last two are just classics to ME. :lol:

[Ben Mines]

And Gulliver's Travels.

[Ravenwood]

Crime and punishment - Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy



Thought it was Fyodor Dostoevsky? Loved that book!

Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

[Kylie]

"The Haunted Bookshop" by Christopher Morley

I've heard of The Haunted Bookshop and have been wanting to read it. The fact that you listed it as one of your favourites has bumped it up my wish list!

[ii]

Crime and punishment - Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy

Thought it was Fyodor Dostoevsky?

It is. Great book, by the way.

[peacefield]

Hard to narrow it down to three, but here goes:

1. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
2. Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
3. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

[Child.of.God.1989]

I still have so many to compare my current favorites with! This will be fun for us to look back on in a year or so. It is so difficult to make this decision, with indecisive worrying about not paying homage to a certain author, or whether to go for ones whose stories really wowed me or taught me... Perhaps if I read these again, and other classics, I will see books that both delight and teach.:)

In no particular order, my current indispensables are:
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- A Daughter's Devotion by George Macdonald
- Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maude Montgomery

Wow, I certainly like the noble, blossoming heroines!

[scottishbookworm]

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
2.war and peace by Leo Tolstoy
3. The picture of dorian gray by Oscar wilde

[Stephanie2008]

I love Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) and Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens). I don't usually read classic books though.

[Ernie]

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

[Child.of.God.1989]

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

These remind me so much of my younger brother! They were all book report choices for him in elementary. What young man doesn't love jumping into these adventures even bigger than their backyard?

[rach.at.the.disco]

I haven't read that many, only the one's on my booklist for uni. I do have a few on my TBR pile but the one's I liked best were:

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
The Mayor Of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy