The Classics

9 Replies

I’ve been thinking about reading some of the classics.

This is a list of books that I acquired from Artificial Intelligence.

The list didn’t include full canons, such as those from Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe.

Which of these have you read?

Would you recommend any of these?

Are there any books on this list that you haven’t read – but wished that you had?

I’ve placed an asterisk beside the titles that I’ve read.

Ancient Classics

  1. The Epic of Gilgamesh
  2. The Iliad by Homer
  3. The Odyssey by Homer
  4. The Aeneid by Virgil
  5. Metamorphoses by Ovid
  6. The Republic by Plato

Classical Literature

  1. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
  2. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
  3. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Renaissance to Enlightenment

  1. Paradise Lost by John Milton
  2. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
  3. Candide by Voltaire

19th Century

  1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  2. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
  3. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë *
  4. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë *
  5. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  6. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
  7. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
  8. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  9. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert *
  10. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo *
  11. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  12. Middlemarch by George Eliot

Early 20th Century

  1. Ulysses by James Joyce
  2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald *
  3. 1984 by George Orwell
  4. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  5. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
  6. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Mid to Late 20th Century

  1. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
  2. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
  3. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
  4. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
  5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  6. Beloved by Toni Morrison *
  7. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
  8. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Non-English Classics

  1. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (Japan)
  2. Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en (China)
  3. One Thousand and One Nights (Middle Eastern collection)
  4. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
  5. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (Russia)

Modern Classics

  1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  2. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
  3. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

This list includes works from various cultures and periods, representing a broad spectrum of the human experience through literature.

9 thoughts on “The Classics”

  1. Loraine

    I have read some of them in High School English class and others in college as I was an English major.
    The Iliad by Homer
    the odyssey by homer
    the canterbury tales by geoffrey chaucer
    gulliver’s travels by jonathan swift
    pride and prejudice by jane austin
    moby dick by hermal melville
    great expectations by charles dickens
    1984 by george orwell
    to kill a mockingbird by harper lee

    But I ended up teaching primary grades, so that ended my reading of classics.

    Reply ↓
    1. Cecelia Dowdy Post author

      Hey Loraine!
      Do you remember if you enjoyed Gulliver’s Travels?
      I plan on starting that one soon.

      Reply ↓
  2. Jenny Blake (aka ausjenny)

    I haven’t read one of those. I am surprised Little women isn’t there. In high school some classes read A Brave New world our class saw the mini series instead.

    Reply ↓
    1. Cecelia Dowdy Post author

      Hey Jenny! I don’t believe that list is exhaustive – what I mean is, I don’t think it includes everything.
      Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe aren’t mentioned, either.
      I’d imagine Shakespeare and Poe would be entire canons instead of a single book.
      I tried to read Little Women, but, for some reason, I was bored. I couldn’t finish it.
      Have you ever read Emma by Jane Austen?

      Reply ↓
    1. Cecelia Dowdy Post author

      Hi, Nancy.
      You’d mentioned that you read 3 books on the list?
      You said you’d read Invisible Man? What other 2 books on the list did you read?
      Frankenstein should have probably been included on the list.
      I read Frankenstein as an adult and I really enjoyed it!
      From what I can recall, Frankenstein is considered to be one of the first science fiction novels ever written.
      Thanks for sharing the Reedsy list! I will check it out!
      Other newsletter subscribers have also shared other reading lists with me!
      I hope you have a wonderful day!

      Reply ↓
  4. Vera Davis

    I read the following books: In High School – Gulliver’s Travel, Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. I loved reading Jane Eyre, Great Expectations and Wuthering Heights. As an adult I’ve read Beloved and some of Invisible Man and To Kill a Mockingbird.

    High School
    Gulliver’s Travel
    Great Expectations
    Wuthering Heights
    Jane Eyre
    I loved Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights and

    Reply ↓
    2. Cecelia Dowdy Post author

      I read Beloved as an adult. It’s hard for me to read books involving slavery.
      When I wrote The Baker’s Bride, that was one reason why I had my heroine to be a manumitted (free) slave.
      The Baker’s Bride takes place during the abolitionist movement – The Underground Railroad.

      Reply ↓

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