What are your top three classics?

[Virginia]

Anna Karenina

Does the Hobbit count as a classic?

Roots by Alex Haley

[JudyM]

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (also a really good critique of the novel called The House of Mirth -a novel of admonition by Linda-Wagner Martin).

 

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

 

Tess of the D'Urbevilles by Thomas Hardy

[frankie]

I can't believe I haven't replied to this topic yet. I have to consider the matter more deeply, I cannot come up with two other titles, but my most favorite is...

 

1. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

 

Okay I went through all the books I've ever read and this is my list: 

 

1. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

2. Dracula by Bram Stoker 

3. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

 

 

 

(I thought I'd restrict classics to include anything till the start of the 20th century, personally. Nothing 19-- onwards.)

[Kylie]

Goodness me—it's been almost 8 years since I posted my list! I have to say that my top 3 are still the same, and in the same order too.

 

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

[frankie]

Goodness me—it's been almost 8 years since I posted my list! I have to say that my top 3 are still the same, and in the same order too.

 

Yay for Dracula I really want to read The Count of Monte Christo ... 

 

In a way it's a shame that it's been 8 years and you've not read a classic that can compete with your then favorites, but then again, it's indicative of just how great your top three classics are in your opinion  

[Kylie]

Yay for Dracula I really want to read The Count of Monte Christo ... 

 

In a way it's a shame that it's been 8 years and you've not read a classic that can compete with your then favorites, but then again, it's indicative of just how great your top three classics are in your opinion

 

I meant to comment on your inclusion of Dracula. I don't think I knew (or I'd probably just forgotten) that you had read Dracula, much less enjoyed it enough to add it to your top 3!

 

I agree with your second comment. Although it's just as likely that I haven't been reading as many classics as I should.

[Peacefield]

Like many others here, Dumas and Dickens are tops for me  

 

1. The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas

2. A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens

3. Great Expectations Charles Dickens  

[Madeleine]

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

[frankie]

Like many others here, Dumas and Dickens are tops for me  

 

1. The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas

2. A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens

3. Great Expectations Charles Dickens  

 

Oh yeah!     

[willoyd]

Goodness me—it's been almost 8 years since I posted my list! I have to say that my top 3 are still the same, and in the same order too.

 

You got me wondering about mine.  Actually, they have changed a little bit, and are now:

 

Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

Bleak House - Charles Dickens

Middlemarch - George Eliot

 

Originally, I had To Kill A Mockingbird along with the Austen and the Dickens, but Middlemarch and Virginia Woolf now sneak in in front of Harper Lee for me.  Rereading War and Peace has pushed it up the ladder too (I do like my Victorian classics chunky!).

 

Of course, as I originally said, I could have had just three Austens  (or, indeed, three Dickens) !

[The Bibliophagus Beagle]

Les Miserables - Hugo

The Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas

Animal Farm - Orwell

 

Tough call. I like many classics. David Copperfield, Whitefang, Tess of the D'urbervilles, Frankenstein, Iliad and Odyssey, Dracula, The Jungle Books, Sherlock Holmes stories, The Once and Future King, The Lord of the Rings, The Foundation Trilogy, 1984, The Phantom of the Opera, etc.

[Onion Budgie]

The Complete Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle  

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

Dracula, by Bram Stoker

 

All first read while I was in my teens.  I haven't revisited the latter two in YEARS, and I'd really like to.

[Kolinahr]

In no particular order:

 

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Paradise Lost by John Milton 

Faust by Goethe

 

I think...I've never made a top three reads list of any kind and have a hard time making a definitive statement here, but for now this is it. Re: Paradise Lost, though---I actually don't like it nearly as much as Lord Byron's Cain: A Mystery, which has a very romanticised sort of Lucifer, even more of a misunderstood, tragic figure than Milton's Satan, but I'm not sure how many people have really read Byron's chamber plays and if they're well known enough to count as classics.

 

I do recommend it heartily, though, especially considering Byron's amusing, page long opening exposition in which he swears he was completely unaware of how similar his premise is to Milton's, because really he only read Milton once, a long, long time ago, and he barely remembers it at all, etc. This is particularly interesting because the Romantic era is really the first time in literary history when originality started to become extremely important. Before that, everyone took inspiration from everyone else and re-wrote each other's work with impunity. Byron was probably one of the first to have to suffer through the "fan fiction" accusations and backlash, at least within the literary community. 

[VictorC4C]

The Godfather - Mario Puzzo (it still not old enough to be a classic, but it is so amazing I can't help myself)

 

The Count Of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (a page turner!)

 

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (as well as the rest of the Sherlock Holmes series)

 

 

[Mythago]

Pre- 20th century:

 

Tom Jones.

Jane Eyre.

The Last Man.

[dreadnaught]

I am a sucker for the victorian horror but at the moment, the three that come to mind are
Dracula - Bram Stoker
Frankenstein - Mary Shelly
And probably my all time favorite
A Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde.

Something about the intelligence in that book that feels completely tangible

[Kafka On The Shore]

1. The Picture Of Dorian Gray (Wilde)

2. Great Expectations (Dickens)

3. Wuthering Heights (Bronte) 

[KEV67]

1 Great Expectations

2 The Jungle Book

3 Pride and Prejudice

[ZJantiques]

1. Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

2. The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli

3. Joseph Fouche: The Portrait Of A Politician by Stefan Zweig

[haveGood]

1. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maughan

2. Nostromo by Joseph Conrad

3. Rabbit, Run by John Updike or The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (I can't decide!)

 

I know that The Sound and the Fury is probably the more important book, and honestly probably the better book, but Rabbit, Run is a really personal one for me.

[Douglas]

1. JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte

 

2. THE WOMAN IN WHITE by Wilkie Collins

 

3. WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Bronte

[mvr moorthy]

My top three are---

Great Expectations

The Brothers Karamazov

Sister Carrie

[LoneSoul]

Of all classics I've read, the only one I liked is 'Wizard of Oz'.

'Jungle Book', 'Pinocchio' and 'Ebenizer Scrooge' are overrated.

[KEV67]

I've updated my preferences:

1) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

2) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

3) Moby Dick by Herman Melville

 

I wanted to pick The Adventures of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Richard Fielding at 3, but in honesty I had difficulty in picking between Huckleberry Finn and Moby Dick for 2.