What are your favorite 19C books?

[Misfit]

OK, I'll start this thread. My favs (as best as I can recall and in no particular order)

1. Jane Eyre
2. Middlemarch
3. The Count of Monte Cristo (anything by Dumas)
4. Lorna Doone
5. Miss Marjoriebanks
6. The Mill on the Floss
7. A Tale of Two Cities
8. Bleak House
9. The Scarlet Letter
10. Wives and Daughters

[Susan]

No order either: Great Expectations, David Copperfield, Jane Eyre, Tess of the d'Ubervilles, Pride and Prejudice

I remember my 6th grade teacher read Lorna Doone out loud, but I don't remember anything about the book!

[LCW]

I love Pride and Predjudice and The Scarlett Letter. Also is Wuthering Heights in the 19th C? It's been a while and I can't remember but if it is it's another fav!

I read Scaramouche a few months ago and was all set to love it but it was a little tedious after a while.

[boswellbaxter]

Bleak House
Our Mutual Friend
David Copperfield
Great Expectations
Little Dorrit
Wives and Daughters
Mansfield Park
Persuasion
Villette

[Misfit]

'Also is Wuthering Heights in the 19th C?"

Absolutely.

[Misfit]

Bleak House
Our Mutual Friend
David Copperfield
Great Expectations
Little Dorrit
Wives and Daughters
Mansfield Park
Persuasion
Villette


Dickens gal, aren't you? :)

[MLE]

Most of the above, plus
Jane Eyre
Huckleberry Finn
Silas Marner
The Cloister and the Hearth
Ben-Hur
the Last of the Mohicans
the Scarlet Letter
the Wizard of Oz
Ivanhoe
Tales of the Alhambra

[boswellbaxter]

Dickens gal, aren't you? :)

You got it! Though even I had a hard time with Barnaby Rudge. But who knows, I might like it now.

[diamondlil]

There is a big hole in my reading when it comes to the 19th century. I haven't read very much at all!

I did read North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell last year, and I am currently listening to Great Expectations so I am trying to address the issue!

[Misfit]

There is a big hole in my reading when it comes to the 19th century. I haven't read very much at all!

I did read North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell last year, and I am currently listening to Great Expectations so I am trying to address the issue!

Careful, it's habit forming :)

[diamondlil]

I feel kind of compelled to read more anyway, because whenever I say to someone that I haven't read books like Pride and Prejudice I can here the gasp from the other side of the world!

[pat]

I feel kind of compelled to read more anyway, because whenever I say to someone that I haven't read books like Pride and Prejudice I can here the gasp from the other side of the world!


You can hear it louder from this side!!


My faves:

P & P
Jane Eyre

Cant remember what others I have read! I will have a think and return!

[diamondlil]

You can hear it louder from this side!!




See...exactly what I meant!

[Misfit]

Everyone gasp! I still haven't gotten around to reading Austen except for Northhangar Abbey which was so-so for me. It will have to wait, I've got several George Eliot and Gaskell books on the pile.

[diamondlil]

Phew...so I am not the only one!

[Misfit]

Phew...so I am not the only one!


:p:):o

My goodness this board is busy today.

[diamondlil]

It's the excitement of a new thing! It is after midnight and I have to get up in less than 6 hours and yet I still can't move from the computer to bed! And, darn, I have just realised that I didn't put the washing in the dryer!;)

[Catherine Delors]

My favorites for the 19th century:

All of Jane Austen, esp. Persuasion and Mansfield Park
Middlemarch
The Mill on the Floss
Wuthering Heights
Madame Bovary
L'Education Sentimentale
All of Dostoevsky, esp. Memoirs from the House of the Dead (not sure about the English title of this one)
Bel Ami
Au Bonheur des Dames, Germinal, and about anything else by Zola
Wives and Daughters
Sylvia's Lovers
Quatre Vingt Treize
Eugenie Grandet
The Three Musketeers and sequels
Barchester Towers

Maybe it's the language barrier, but my eyes glaze over when I read Dickens. Great sense of humor, but, unlike the other Victorians, he is very, very tough for non-native speakers.

[Virgulina]

Phew...so I am not the only one!

I've only read Pride & Prejudice, so you're definitely not alone! ;)

Some of my favourites are Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Dracula.

Ana

[boswellbaxter]

My favorites for the 19th century:

All of Jane Austen, esp. Persuasion and Mansfield Park

Maybe it's the language barrier, but my eyes glaze over when I read Dickens. Great sense of humor, but, unlike the other Victorians, he is very, very tough for non-native speakers.

Ah, another Persuasion and Mansfield Park person! I think Mansfield Park people are relatively rare.

[Julianne Douglas]

Anything by George Eliot--one of my all-time favorite authors!

Stendhal--The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma

Zola--Germinal

Flaubert--Madame Bovary, Salammbo

Anything by Thomas Hardy, especially Tess and The Mayor of Castorbridge

Thackeray--Vanity Fair

Henry James--The Ambassadors, Portrait of a Lady

Walter Scott--Ivanhoe

I shouldn't admit it, but I never really could get into Jane Austen.

[Cuchulainn]

I won't try to list all my favourites, but for certain Dostoevsky's Brother's Karamazov and Crime and Punishment are in the top five: two of the finest novels ever written, any time, any place.

[Catherine Delors]

Persuasion: second chances do happen, even in love.
Mansfield Park: an understated, intellectual heroine, the ultimate outsider, both at MP and in her birth family. She sees through all the fancy appearances, and can say nothing. A frightening situation for someone so young. Oh, yes, I am a fan of Fanny Price and the wonderfully diverse cast of characters.

Julianne: how could I forget Stendhal?

[Julianne Douglas]

Shame on you, Catherine! :)

And seeing how much you love Austen, I'll have to give her another try.

[Margaret]

Jane Eyre. I've reread that so many times.

The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment have been mentioned, for good reason. But I think my favorite Dostoyevsky is The Idiot.

I wish Dickens weren't still so relevant, but I fear he is. Bleak House and A Tale of Two Cities are my favorites.

I don't think anyone's mentioned Thomas Hardy yet. He and Jane Austen were both masters of plot and pacing.

The antique language in these novels tends to slow down modern readers, but all these novels are literary novels of ideas and character and well-plotted, briskly paced page-turners: a good thing for today's authors and (especially) publishers to consider. There seems to be a pre-conception floating around that novels are either literary (and therefore kind of boring) or genre (and therefore not worth the attention of intelligent people), but never both. All my favorite novels are both literary novels full of important ideas and well-plotted, exciting stories.

[sweetpotatoboy]

My favourite 19th century author is Anthony Trollope and I've read many of his 40-odd novels. He was just a natural born storyteller, creating memorable characters and believable dialogue. One always knows that the novel is going to end happily but how we get there and what the characters learn about life and themselves in the process is what keeps us engaged.

I've also very much enjoyed the Thackeray novels I've read and his 'History of Henry Esmond' (set in the reign of Queen Anne) is one of the best historical novels of all time and is now thankfully back in print, though its sequel 'The Virginians' shamefully isn't.

[Vanessa]

Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are a couple of my favourite books. I really like the Brontes' style of writing. And Wuthering Heights is very atmospheric, very dark, too.

[Catherine Delors]

I am a fan of Henry Esmond too...

[Telynor]

Oh goodness, where do I start?

Elizabeth Gaskell -- Wives and Daughters and Cranford Chronicles.

Jane Austen (of course)

Henry James -- The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl. Didn't much care for Portrait of a Lady, but I might give it a second try.

Charlotte Bronte -- Jane Eyre

Tolstoy -- Anna Karenina

Pushkin and Lermontov

[Juniper]

Jane Eyre (I much prefered Jane Eyre to Wuthering Heights).

I'm a huge Austen fan. Persuasion is my favourite, closely followed by Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park. I do love Northanger Abbey, though. Oh I just love them all!

[Spitfire]

I Love Bronte's Jane Eyre!
Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice and Emma
Gaskell's Wives and Daughters, I saw the movie rendition of North and South (Loved it!) - haven't read the novel yet...it's on my TBR pile!
Orczy's The Scarlette Pimpernel
Does Anne of Green Gables count by Montgomery...loved those book when I was younger, still a classic!
Mental blocking right now, I know there are more, and am too lazy to go look through my library! :o

[MLS859]

Pride and Prejudice (Austen)
North and South (Gaskell)
A Take of Two Cities (Dickens)

[Divia]

Little Women (Alcott)
Rose in Bloom (Alcott)
The Awakening (Chopin)

I'm hoping to read Gaskell soon.

[Madeleine]

Jane Eyre
Wuthering Heights
The Woman in White (Wilkie Collins)
Uncle Silas (Sheridan le Fanu)
Most of Thomas Hardy's but especially Tess and Far from the Madding Crowd
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

[chuck]

My college Literature class has to take credit for many of these 19Th century reads.....I can't remember them all.....here are a few of my favorites

Turn of the Screw..... Henry James
Red Badge of Courage....Stephen Crane
Last of the Mohican's....James Fennimore Cooper
Moby Dick....Herman Melville
Picture of Dorian Gray....Oscar Wilde
The Count of Monte Cristo...A. Dumas
Legend of Sleepy Hollow/Rip Van Winkle....Washington Irving

[Christina]

Wuthering Heights
Great Expectations and most of Dickens' other works.

(Yikes, but I can't bear Thomas Hardy - the ultimate in depressing!! Does anyone ever live happily ever after in Hardy??)

[Misfit]

Wuthering Heights
Great Expectations and most of Dickens' other works.

(Yikes, but I can't bear Thomas Hardy - the ultimate in depressing!! Does anyone ever live happily ever after in Hardy??)

I seem to recall that Far from the Madding Crowd had something close to reasonably happy ending. But I know what you mean -- Tess!!

[boswellbaxter]

I seem to recall that Far from the Madding Crowd had something close to reasonably happy ending. But I know what you mean -- Tess!!


Under the Greenwood Tree is supposed to have a happy ending, as far as Hardy goes.

[chuck]

Wuthering Heights
Great Expectations and most of Dickens' other works.

(Yikes, but I can't bear Thomas Hardy - the ultimate in depressing!! Does anyone ever live happily ever after in Hardy??)

I don't mean to generalize about the nineteenth century, but I think Hardy was telling it like it "was"....Hardy books were a college reads and they were really a struggle.......Some of Dickens' were very bleak and dark....much of the time he took the middle road and worked on ending on happier times.....

[Christina]

Oh, yes, Dickens was bleak, too, but his stories usually have some sense of a happy ending - in a 'in spite of everything' kind of way. Hardy is the Leonard Cohen-without-the-music :-) of 19th century literature! Jude the Obscure??? Oh, no...this is just too unbearable!!
When he was a child, Hardy saw a hanged man left swinging from a gibbet in his village. That - and his obsession with architecture (which, I must confess, I find rather boring in his books) - seemed to hang over everything he wrote.
I know Dickens had a very difficult childhood and there is a great deal of the grotesque and hyperbole (not to mention, too many 'coincidences') in his books but he gets away with it because his characters are so unique and have their own phrases and mannerisms - right down to their names! - that they are still people we can relate to, today.
Emily Bronte...a completely different kettle of fish :-)...wow!! what a writer! What an amazing mind and spirit! I adore her poetry even more than her one amazing book!

[Misfit]

The only Hardy I've read so far is Far from the Madding Crowd and Tess. I have Jude on my pile, along with a couple of Dickens and Eliot when I'm back in the 19C mood. I read Bronte's Shirley a few months ago and it was a struggle to get through. So different from Jane Eyre and Villette.

[Vanessa]

I've read The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy and enjoyed it. His writing gets a little getting used to, though.

[princess garnet]

I had to read that book for my 11th grade honors English class in high school. Didn't like it.

[Leo62]

Predictable I'm afraid:

Middlemarch (the absolute tops)
North & South
Far from the Madding Crowd
Return of the Native
Bleak House
A Christmas Carol
Mansfield Park
The Time Machine - HG Wells
Dracula
Silas Marner

[boswellbaxter]

Nice to see someone else with Bleak House and Mansfield Park on the list!

[Leo62]

Nice to see someone else with Bleak House and Mansfield Park on the list!

Gotta love Mansfield Park - it's my favourite Austen :D (despite the awful Billie Piper adaptation that was on recently...)

[AuntiePam]

Au Bonheur des Dames, Germinal, and about anything else by Zola


I haven't read that one yet but it's on the shelf. I love Zola. Favorites are The Dram Shop, The Earth, Germinal, Pot Luck, and Therese Raquin.

I'm not very well-read in 19th century fiction, but I liked these very much:

New Grub Street by George Gissing
Fathers and Sons - Turgenev
Pere Goriot - Balzac

Oops, forgot Dracula -- I'm re-reading it now, actually. I'd forgotten how good it was. I'll put Frankenstein on the favorites list too.

[Christina]

An interesting few minutes on a TV programme last night (which, unfortunately, I missed most of) threw a new insight into the death of Charlotte Bronte. I wish I had caught the entire story as it involved an author (I am ashamed to say I don't know who it was - it might even be someone who posts here!!) going around the parsonage and then speaking with people who suffered the same symptoms as Charlotte did in her last illness. From the little I saw, the author seemed to be saying that Charlotte didn't die of TB, as is generally believed, but of a rare condition affecting pregnant women (which is now treatable :-) ). Perhaps someone else saw the whole thing and knows more...

[Libby]

Do you know what the programme was Christina? Or what channel? It may be available to watch again online and it sounds interesting.

[Christina]

Libby, I'm so sorry for being so late getting back to your post so it's probably too late to answer, anyway. I can't remember if it was "Close Up North" or "Inside Out" - one of those early evening 'magazine' programmes from the north. I am sure that sooner or later, the author (the one whose name I've forgotten!), will produce a book or further details about it....

[Marc]

Hi,


These are some of my favorite novels from the 19th Century.

Oliver Twist
Pickwick Papers
Crime and Punishment
The Idiot
Far from the Madding Crowd
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
Les Miserables


Marc Cool

[Nefret]

There is a big hole in my reading when it comes to the 19th century. I haven't read very much at all!



I haven't either. I am going to fix that now. The classics have their own TBR mountain now.

Starting out with Crime and Punishment.

[SGM]

Oh, yes, Dickens was bleak, too, but his stories usually have some sense of a happy ending - in a 'in spite of everything' kind of way. Hardy is the Leonard Cohen-without-the-music :-) of 19th century literature! Jude the Obscure??? Oh, no...this is just too unbearable!!
When he was a child, Hardy saw a hanged man left swinging from a gibbet in his village. That - and his obsession with architecture (which, I must confess, I find rather boring in his books) - seemed to hang over everything he wrote.
I know Dickens had a very difficult childhood and there is a great deal of the grotesque and hyperbole (not to mention, too many 'coincidences') in his books but he gets away with it because his characters are so unique and have their own phrases and mannerisms - right down to their names! - that they are still people we can relate to, today.
Emily Bronte...a completely different kettle of fish :-)...wow!! what a writer! What an amazing mind and spirit! I adore her poetry even more than her one amazing book!

Sorry I am coming to this thread rather late but I so so agree with the comment about Jude the Obscure and Leonard Cohen (very wrist-slashing). The BBC televised Jude years and years ago and which I watched faithfully to the end and nearly stuck my head in the oven. But didn't mind the Mayor of Casterbridge so much. I read these in my teens and a bit like D H Lawrence, I don't think I could read them again now.

I love Tolstoy and Anna Karennina is my favourite novel of all time but I was never really got on with Dostoyevski. I did enjoy the Turgenev novels which were a very much easier read.

Villette brings back unfortunate memories -- probably because it was a rather effective novel. However, did find the Lyn Reid Banks' Dark Quartet novels about all four Brontes rather good but haven't read them in years. I am not a particular fan of Elizabeth Gaskell, although I think it was her who wrote a reasonable biography of Charlotte Bronte. The BBC's adaptation of Cranford is rather delightful, however.

I am really keen to read Henry Esmond but finding it difficult to get hold of and am finding it difficult to read from PDF (but at least its free). I am also trying to find Devereux by Bulwer-Lytton as it has been recommended to me.

[Telynor]

Persuasion by Jane Austen -- I think it is my favourite of all her novels
Wives and Daughters and the Cranford stories by Elizabeth Gaskell
Jane Eyre (I suspect this one lands on everyone's list)
The Memoirs of Lady Hyeyeong -- the autobiography of a Korean crown princess.
I enjoyed Bleak House, but I don't know if I would think of it as a favourite.

I know there must be more...

Edit: oh my goodness, I forgot about the Russians! (hangs head in shame)

Anything -- I really do like Evgen Onegin and The Queen of Spades by Pushkin
Anna Karenina and Resurrection by Tolstoy
The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky

[M.M. Bennetts]

A Tale of Two Cities - Dickens;
War and Peace - Tolstoy;
Jane Eyre - Bronte;
Persuason - Austen;
The Warden - Trollope;
Our Mutual Friend - Dickens;
The Charterhouse of Parma - Stendahl;
Fathers and Sons - Turgenev
The Scarlet Letter - Hawthorne...

Is that enough for starters? Unless I'm allowed to include poetry...and in that case, I'd have to put down Sit Walter Scott--I know, who reads him today--but some of the best battle-writing you could hope to find.

Byron's Childe Harold.

And the collected Gerard Manley Hopkins...

[Michy]

My faves are:

#1 Jane Eyre

the rest (in no particular order):

Silas Marner
A Tale of Two Cities
A Christmas Carol
The Wizard of Oz (published in 1900, so it just barely qualifies!)
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Sign of Four
Little Women (yes, I know it is moralistic, but I just like it anyway :))
Les Miserables
The Hunchbank of Notre Dame (I just wish Hugo didn't d-i-g-r-e-s-s quite so much!)

the author seemed to be saying that Charlotte didn't die of TB, as is generally believed, but of a rare condition affecting pregnant women (which is now treatable :-) ).

The Wikipedia article on Charlotte says basically the same thing, and suggests a few different causes of her death.


Maybe it's the language barrier, but my eyes glaze over when I read Dickens. Great sense of humor, but, unlike the other Victorians, he is very, very tough for non-native speakers.

Very interesting -- why is that?

[Misfit]

The Wizard of Oz (published in 1900, so it just barely qualifies!)

I do love those books, mom had most (but not all) of the series and I still have them dating to the 1930's. The illustrations are just amazing.

[Michy]

I had a few others - The Scarecrow of Oz is the only title I can remember -- but I never enjoyed them like I did the original. Although I immensely enjoyed WoO, as a kid I found all the other Oz books too "weird." Of course, they are long gone, now, so I can't re-read them to see if I would still feel that way.....

[Misfit]

I had a few others - The Scarecrow of Oz is the only title I can remember -- but I never enjoyed them like I did the original. Although I immensely enjoyed WoO, as a kid I found all the other Oz books too "weird." Of course, they are long gone, now, so I can't re-read them to see if I would still feel that way.....

They are very good and I think they've been republished.

[Michy]

In my copy of the WWoO (which is new, I just bought it a couple of years or so ago) there is a section in the back that talks about all the things -- sequels, film, etc. etc. -- that were inspired by it. Baum himself wrote 13 sequels; after his death several others wrote several more, making a grand total of 40 sequels!!!!

Incidentally, it mentions that one person illustrated the original, and a different illustrator did the subsequent books. It probably seems funny, but that is one of the reasons I didn't like the Oz sequels as a kid; because the pictures were different, and none of the characters looked the same. It contributed to the books' feeling of "strangeness" to me. ;)

[rockygirl]

Jane Eyre--definitely my number one. Read it as a kid and still love it.

In no particular order:

Wuthering Heights
Emma
The Scarlet Pimpernal (glad to see it on other lists)
The Awakening

And while it's not a book--the Sherlock Holmes stories

[Michy]

I really like The Scarlet Pimpernel, also. He reminds me of the "original" masked superhero. :D So handsome, so rich, so intelligent, so brave..... *sigh*

Sherlock Holmes was one of my favorites growing up. I loved mysteries, and when I outgrew Nancy Drew I graduated to Sherlock Holmes, and read nearly every novel and short story, I believe. A few years ago I picked one up and decided to give it a try. It was the first time I read one as an adult, and it ended up being the only time, as Sherlock just didn't hold up for me as an adult reader. I was so disappointed -- it's a little sad when a much-loved book/character from the past just doesn't cut it, anymore....:(

[SGM]

I found Jude the Obscure one of the most wrist-slashing experiences of all time.

However, I still find the opening pages of Return of the Native some of the most stunning prose of all time.

Therese Raquin gave me nightmares but found I Earth fascinating and strangely useful in later years when trying to understand and write about The Common Agricultural Policy - hmmm. There's sense in their somewhere.

[The Czar]

I don't really care for the Victorian era much. Too much bodice ripping, not enough meat for my taste. That said, my favorites...

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde (This is a smart, well written Victorian novel with a dark side.)

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (I am about 300 pages in and can hardly put it down. Immense in scope already, and very well written.)

Anything by Dostoyevsky - (Oddly, I haven't read brothers Karamozov yet, it will be next when I finish War and Peace. But I have read most of his others, and Crime and Punishment and The House of the Dead in particular I love).

The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - (has anybody read his "new" one? http://www.amazon.com/Last-Cavalier-Adventures-Sainte-Hermine-Napoleon/dp/1605980005/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306083613&sr=1-1

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Treasure Island - Robert Lewis Stevenson

Here is some of my favorites that are set in the 19th C, but not actually written there.

The Flashman Series - George Macdonald Frasier (These are hilarious, and contain more history than you think).

The Sharpe Series - Bernard Cornwell

The Aubery-Maturin Novels - Patrick O'brien (All you ever wanted to know and then some about the Napoleonic Era Royal Navy.)

[Madeleine]

I found Jude the Obscure one of the most wrist-slashing experiences of all time.

However, I still find the opening pages of Return of the Native some of the most stunning prose of all time.

Therese Raquin gave me nightmares but found I Earth fascinating and strangely useful in later years when trying to understand and write about The Common Agricultural Policy - hmmm. There's sense in their somewhere.

I've always thought this was one of Hardy's best books, it's often overlooked but worth a mention. Jude, I have to agree, whilst a worthy tome, is not for the easily depressed....:eek:

[SGM]

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (I am about 300 pages in and can hardly put it down. Immense in scope already, and very well written.)

Anything by Dostoyevsky - (Oddly, I haven't read brothers Karamozov yet, it will be next when I finish War and Peace. But I have read most of his others, and Crime and Punishment and The House of the Dead in particular I love).

I, too, enjoyed War and Peace, having read Anna Karenina a few years before which I admit I preferred but I also enjoyed Resurrrection (this is all so many years ago). I have a copy of Cossacks now which I just don't seem to get round to reading.

I really never could get on with Dostoyevski and live in hope that one day I will. I also went through a phase of Turgenev when I was in my teens which I enjoyed at the time but I wonder if I would now.

[The Czar]

I, too, enjoyed War and Peace, having read Anna Karenina a few years before which I admit I preferred but I also enjoyed Resurrrection (this is all so many years ago). I have a copy of Cossacks now which I just don't seem to get round to reading.

I really never could get on with Dostoyevski and live in hope that one day I will. I also went through a phase of Turgenev when I was in my teens which I enjoyed at the time but I wonder if I would now.

I think I'm gonna try August 1914 by Solzhenitsyn next. Either that or Brothers Karamazov.

[SGM]

I think I'm gonna try August 1914 by Solzhenitsyn next. Either that or Brothers Karamazov.

I've only done First Circe and One Day in the Life of....

But again so long ago. I wonder if I should go back to some of these writers and finish them off....May be. So many books, so little time, particularly as I am not really reading much fiction at the moment.

[The Czar]

I also went through a phase of Turgenev when I was in my teens which I enjoyed at the time but I wonder if I would now.

That always upsets me, when I re-read a book that really blew my mind at one point, and it just doesn't resonate anymore. The two examples that come to mind are...

The Catcher in the Rye - This book just floored me as a 16 year old boy. I read it over and over. Read it again when I was 28 or so... it had lost its charm.

Atlas Shrugged - I read this when I was 24, and basically skipped several days of classes and read constantly. Thought I had everything figured out, and that I had finally found the "truth." Well, read it again not long ago, and while I still like the book, a good deal of the philosophy doesn't ring to me anymore.

I guess books, being encapsulated ideas, are like anything else. You outgrow them. That's why I'm interested as I continue this classics kick I'm on to see if maybe I "grew into" some stuff I didn't like when I was forced to read it as a student.

[EC2]

I'm not that keen on 19thC books, but I did enjoy Jane Eyre when I was younger. Is Little Women 19thC? That was good. I also like 19thC ghost stories but couldn't name any one author. In fact such anthologies are a secret vice of mine!

[LoveHistory]

I just read through this thread and was shocked to find that I have never posted here.
Here are some of my favorites:

Austen's works (especially Northanger Abbey, Pride & Prejudice, and Mansfield Park)
The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Little Men by Louisa May Alcott
Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss
Silas Marner by George Eliot
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

I'm woefully deficient in my Russian literature, but I plan to tackle War & Peace this year. Read Dr. Zhivago. Didn't much care for it.

[jessicajames]

Some of my favorites are well known classics like the Scarlet Pimpernel and Wuthering Heights - but I'm currently reading Mohun by John Esten Cooke. Cooke was considered one of the greatest writers about Virginia and the Civil War in the 1800s. It is heavily Civil War so may not appeal to all, but I enjoy his writing style.

Other not-so-famous authors of 19th C would be Randall Parrish, Captain Charles King, and E.P. Roe if anyone has the same strange interests that I do :)