101 Classics to Get You Started

So many books, so little time. Anyone, novice or expert, who is interested in reading classic literature might feel overwhelmed by the number of works categorized as Classics. So, where should you get started? The list below contains 101 works spanning multiple countries and subjects. It is meant to be a get started or find something new list for anyone on their own personal classic reading quest. Text Author The Count of Monte Cristo (1845) Alexandre Dumas The Three Musketeers (1844) Alexandre Dumas Black Beauty (1877) Anna Sewell Agnes Grey (1847) Anne Brontà « The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) Anne Brontà « The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) Anthony Hope Barchester Towers (1857) Anthony Trollope The Complete Sherlock Holmes (1887-1927) Arthur Conan Doyle Dracula (1897) Bram Stoker The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) Carlo Collodi A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Charles Dickens David Copperfield (1850) Charles Dickens Great Expectations (1861) Charles Dickens Hard Times (1854) Charles Dickens Oliver Twist (1837) Charles Dickens Westward Ho! (1855) Charles Kingsley Jane Eyre (1847) Charlotte Brontà « Villette (1853) Charlotte Brontà « Sons and Lovers (1913) D.H. Lawrence Robinson Crusoe (1719) Daniel Defoe Moll Flanders (1722) Daniel Defoe Tales of Mystery Imagination (1908) Edgar Allan Poe The Age of Innocence (1920) Edith Wharton Cranford (1853) Elizabeth Gaskell Wuthering Heights (1847) Emily Brontà « The Secret Garden (1911) Frances Hodgson Burnett Crime and Punishment (1866) Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Brothers Karamazov (1880) Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) G.K. Chesterton The Phantom Of The Opera (1909-10) Gaston Leroux Middlemarch (1871-72) George Eliot Silas Marner (1861) George Eliot The Mill on the Floss (1860) George Eliot The Diary of a Nobody (1892) George and Weedon Grossmith The Princess and the Goblin (1872) George MacDonald The Time Machine (1895) H.G. Wells Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) Harriet Beecher Stowe Walden (1854) Henry David Thoreau The Aspern Papers (1888) Henry James The Turn of the Screw (1898) Henry James King Solomon's Mines (1885) Henry Rider Haggard Moby Dick (1851) Herman Melville The Odyssey (circa 8th C. BC) Homer The Call of the Wild (1903) Jack London Last of the Mohicans (1826) James Fenimore Cooper Emma (1815) Jane Austen Mansfield Park (1814) Jane Austen Persuasion (1817) Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice (1813) Jane Austen Pilgrim's Progress (1678) John Bunyan Gulliver's Travels (1726) Jonathan Swift Heart of Darkness (1899) Joseph Conrad Lord Jim (1900) Joseph Conrad 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1870) Jules Verne Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) Jules Verne The Awakening (1899) Kate Chopin The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) L. Frank Baum Tristram Shandy (1759-1767) Laurence Sterne Anna Karenina (1877) Leo Tolstoy War and Peace (1869) Leo Tolstoy Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) Lewis Carroll Through the Looking-Glass (1871) Lewis Carroll Little Women (1868-69) Louisa May Alcott The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) Mark Twain Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) Mark Twain Frankenstein (1818) Mary Shelley Don Quixote of La Mancha (1605 1615) Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Twice-Told Tales (1837) Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter (1850) Nathaniel Hawthorne The Prince (1532) Niccolà ² Machiavelli The Four Million (1906) O. Henry The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) Oscar Wilde The Metamorphoses (circa 8 AD) Ovid Lorna Doone (1869) R. D. Blackmore Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) Robert Louis Stevenson Treasure Island (1883) Robert Louis Stevenson Kim (1901) Rudyard Kipling The Jungle Book (1894) Rudyard Kipling Ivanhoe (1820) Sir Walter Scott Rob Roy (1817) Sir Walter Scott The Red Badge of Courage (1895) Stephen Crane What Katy Did (1872) Susan Coolidge Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891-92) Thomas Hardy The Mayor Of Casterbridge (1886) Thomas Hardy Utopia (1516) Thomas More Rights of Man (1791) Thomas Paine Les Misà ©rables (1862) Victor Hugo The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819-20) Washington Irving The Moonstone (1868) Wilkie Collins The Woman in White (1859) Wilkie Collins A Midsummer Night's Dream (1600) William Shakespeare As You Like It (1623) William Shakespeare Hamlet (1603) William Shakespeare Henry V (1600) William Shakespeare King Lear (1608) William Shakespeare Othello (1622) William Shakespeare Richard III (1597) William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice (1600) William Shakespeare The Tempest (1623) William Shakespeare Vanity Fair (1848) William Thackeray