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What are your favorite 19C books?

Marc
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Post by Marc » Wed December 9th, 2009, 5:30 am

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
I am the author of Parmethia

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Nefret
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 2994
Joined: February 2009
Favourite HF book: Welsh Princes trilogy
Preferred HF: The Middle Ages (England), New Kingdom Egypt, Medieval France
Location: Temple of Isis

Post by Nefret » Sat April 3rd, 2010, 5:34 am

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

[/quote]

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.
Into battle we ride with Gods by our side
We are strong and not afraid to die
We have an urge to kill and our lust for blood has to be fulfilled
WE´LL FIGHT TILL THE END! And send our enemies straight to Hell!
- "Into Battle"
{Ensiferum}

SGM
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Joined: March 2010

Post by SGM » Sat April 3rd, 2010, 8:28 am

[quote=""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![/quote]

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.
Last edited by SGM on Sat April 3rd, 2010, 9:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Telynor
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Post by Telynor » Sat April 3rd, 2010, 3:42 pm

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
Last edited by Telynor on Sun April 4th, 2010, 2:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

M.M. Bennetts

Post by M.M. Bennetts » Mon August 23rd, 2010, 9:24 pm

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...

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Michy
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Post by Michy » Mon August 23rd, 2010, 11:53 pm

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!)

[quote=""Christina""]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 :-) ).[/quote]

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

[quote=""Catherine Delors""]
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.[/quote]

Very interesting -- why is that?

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Misfit
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Post by Misfit » Tue August 24th, 2010, 12:30 am

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.
At home with a good book and the cat...
...is the only place I want to be

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Michy
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Post by Michy » Tue August 24th, 2010, 2:02 am

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.....

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Misfit
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Post by Misfit » Tue August 24th, 2010, 2:14 am

[quote=""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.....[/quote]

They are very good and I think they've been republished.
At home with a good book and the cat...
...is the only place I want to be

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Michy
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Post by Michy » Wed August 25th, 2010, 3:28 am

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. ;)

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