Favorite Classic Novel

[yukoxholic]

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (This is my all time favorite classic. I could read it over and over again!)

Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

One Thousand and One Arabian Nights

The Secret Garden as well as A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (yes,I know I cheated so I could get six instead of five in... >__<)

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

[Slytherine]

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (This is my all time favorite classic. I could read it over and over again!

Even though it wasn't in my top five before, this one's always close! Definitely something you can read over and over again! *parties*

~Slytherine:rock:

[mysngoeshere56]

Mine would probably be The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. I had to read the abriged version for my English II class, and it was great! I want to read the unabriged version now because it's like over twice as big *he likes long books*.

[TallHobbit86]

Classics
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Pearl by John Steinbeck
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Modern Classics
Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

[Radical Dreamer]

Tacking Hamlet and Les Misérables onto my list, 'cause I can't believe I forgot those originally. XD

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells
1001 Arabian Nights
The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
The Great Divorce - C.S. Lewis
Notes from the Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien

[animewarrior]

All the Narnia Series - C.S. Lewis
Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare
Anne of Green Gables - Lucy M. Montgomery
Black Beauty - Anne Sewell
The Call of the Wild - Jack London
White Fang - Jack London
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Tale of Two Cities
Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
The Prince and the Pauper - Mark Twain

* I know I've read more that I really like but I can't think of them at the moment...*

[Nate]

The Tale of Two Cities

I realize that enjoyment of things is always purely subjective, and that everyone has different tastes. Still, for the life of me, I cannot see why or how anyone could possibly enjoy this book.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

*Laughs*

Nate, I totally agree. I've read A Tale of Two Cities and found it to be dull with a capital 'D'.
The only Dickens story I've enjoyed was A Christmas Carol.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

To Kill a Mockingbird - One of those instances where I was really glad for my reading curriculum in school.

War of the Worlds - When I was little I listened to the Jeff Wayne musical which blew my mind. I read the book on my own in middle-school and fell in love.

[Sheenar]

I love to read, so my list may wind up kind of long...

Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (I know some of you don't like the second title, but I loved the redemption theme in it.)

Black Beauty by Anne Sewell

"1984" by George Orwell (ummm...except for the sexual content)

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (not finished yet, but love it so far)

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (it's not an old classic, but it's a modern one)

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

The Simarillion and the LOTR series by J.R. Tolkien

The Odyssey by Homer

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (had to read it 3 times in school for different classes --I came to really like it)

The Great Divorce, Mere Christianity, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

That's all I can think of now. I do want to read Les Miserables --I just haven't had the time --it's a pretty huge book --but I love the musical and the movie.

Not sure if these are considered classic, but I really liked Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally and The Road by Cormac McCarthy

[Monkey Princess]

Little Women (don't know how many times I've read this one) and To Kill a Mocking Bird

[NekoChan_C]

Hmm, wow this is one that I had to think on!
Okay, my list:

Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
Lord of the Flies
Great Expectations
Little Women
The Scarlet Letter
Dracula, by Bram Stoker
and
anything by E.A. Poe.
booyah.

[minakichan]

Le Comte de Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)

Also: (off the top of my head)
Les Misérables (Victor Hugo)
Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) ...
A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving) <-- the lead actor of the movie version of this goes to my school!

For some reason, I really like old French stuff. It sounds very elegant when it's translated... and the French know how to entertain. Hoho.

[FukuokaGirl]

*blink* *blink blink* XD
I'm sooooo surprised to see these novels, well some of them are novels, being listed under The Classics. ^_____^
Classical literature is comprised of the works coming out of the Greek and Roman cultures, roughly about 1200 BCE to 455 CE. This is known as The Classical Era.
For literature at this time...there are, indeed, many wonderful "stories" being told, but there were also major religious texts as well as grand breakthroughs in philosophy. Most of the works produced at this time began with oral tradition and finished as epic poetry. The Classical Era itself is broken up into four subdivisions for the literary genius that was spawned from the times:
Homeric Period- obviously Homer's Iliad and Odyssey
Classical Greek- producing Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Euripides, Sophocles
Classical Roman- Ovid, Horace, Virgil
Patristic Period- St. Augustine, Tertullian
</Classical Literature> *whew*
XDDDD

Some of the names thrown around in here fall into their own subdivisions within their own appropriate time. But for fear of being excessive, which I'm sure I've already been, I shall simply place the names under their larger umbrella periods.

Chaucer and Dante fall into the Medieval Period.
Spenser, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Donne, and Milton wrote during the Renaissance/Reformation Period.
John Locke, Moliere, Voltaire, Alexander Pope wrote throughout what is known as The Enlightenment (or Neoclassical Era). This period comprises The Colonial Period in America, so this is where you'll find Thomas Paine and so on. The Romantic Period comprises several very, very famous subdivisions but like I said, for brevity's sake, I shall only list the authors (though it pains me to do so ^.~ haha). Blake, Keats, Shelley, Austen, Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, Hawthorne all fall into this category.
The Victorian Period brings us Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her husband Robert Browning as well as Tennyson, Dickens, the Bronte sisters, Sir Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson.
The Modern Period comprises the works from 1914-1945. Therefore including Yeats, Robert Frost, Flannery O'Connor, Virginia Woolf, Dylan Thomas, Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald.
Everything from 1945 onward is considered to be part of the Postmodern Era.

Soooo.... make this little English major heart happy... and dig around and see where your favorite novels falls! I guarantee it will give you something interesting to bring up very soon! Plus, it's a sure fire way to impress your teachers and parents. hehe
I hope you all enjoyed my little English lesson hehe.... I enjoyed writing it. XDDDD


OOooOOooOOoohhh.....
Pssst... everyone... psssst
AustEn.
And Shakespeare didn't write novels...only plays and sonnets.
^_____^

</lit nerd> ... for nooooow hahahahaha XD

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Jenn. XD You're such a lit nerd. =p

[FukuokaGirl]

*siiiigh* I know.

That being said.. here are some of my favorite really, really famous novels written a long time ago. haha aka "classic" ~.^

Les Miserables- Hugo
David Copperfield- Dickens
Pride & Prejudice- Austen
Wuthering Heights- Bronte

[AlyssHeart]

=) My favorites are....
The Chronicles of Narnia -Clive Staples Lewis
Mere Christianity-Clive Staples Lewis
Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass-Lewis Carrol
All three Lord of the Rings-J.R.R. Tolkein
The Hobbit-J.R.R. Tolkein
Peter Pan-??? too lazy to look up.
Anyway, Here are some that I really want to read!!!
Pretty much anything Jane Austen, Notre Dame de France...I think that is what its called.., oh! oh-oh!! I just watched this movie!!! Its way long...but AMAZING!!! So now I want to read Gone With the Wind!!! So yeah...that's it.

[Slytherine]

Someone help me, I've been reading all the novels written by the Bronte sisters, and now I have new favorites. LOL. <3

~Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte [she doesn't get nearly enough spotlight, but I think she's fabulous]
~Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
~Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
~Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
~Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

<3 Kat

[termyt]

The definition of classic was a puzzle to me, but FukuokaGirl covered that more eloquently than I could have.

For example, while I have great admiration for CS Lewis, I’ve never considered his works to be at all classical. I enjoyed Homer but I thought Virgil was little more than a nationalist propagandist looking to legitimize Roman imperialism .

Other “old books” I’ve enjoyed and I believe are worth reading for anyone:
The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck
Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorn
Othello by William Shakespeare (not a novel but a play – so you still get points for watching the movie instead. I recommend the 1995 version with Branagh)
A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (an essay, but still a good read)