Grand Tour of the Classics - reading suggestions sought

[LoveHistory]

[quote=""litchickuk""]a handful of plays is always welcome. Shakespeare is included on the list so a handful of others for better variety and less bias would be great![/quote]

Ok...you asked for it. My favorites are in bold:

The Miser by Moliere
Tartuffe by Moilere
The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekov
Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello
Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
Desire Under the Elms by Eugene O'Neill
The House of Bernard Alba by Federico García Lorca
The Good Person of Szechwan by Bertolt Brecht
Miss Julie by August Strindberg
The Country Wife by William Wycherly
I Remember Mama by John Van Druten

Of course these are just some ideas. You could read just about anything by the better known playwrights. Chekov actually wrote some comedies, he's just known more for his dramatic works.

[SGM]

Sheridan: School for Scandal and The Rivals. Oliver Goldsmith: She Stoops to Conquer. And especially John Ford: 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. Webster: Duchess of Malfi (and his others). I am not fond of these as I get really really fed up with the women always being victims. Revenger's Tragedy (I have forgotten who they have now ascribed authorship of this to at the moment as it seems to change). Ben Johnson: Bartholomew Fair (although I found this a particularly difficult read), The Alchemist. Congreve: The Way of the World.

Has anyone already listed Wilde: Lady Windemere's Fan, The Importance of Being Ernest. Beaumont & Fletcher: The Knight of the Burning Pestle (on second thoughts - don't bother) and naturally Marlowe: Tamberlaine, Faustus etc etc.

[The Czar]

My favorites of the Classics...

The Divine Comedy - Dante Alagheri (get a well annotated translation unless you really know your Italian history, or it will make little sense.)

The Canterbury Tales - Geoffery Chaucer

The Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde

The Illiad and The Odessy - Homer

The Anead - Virgil

The Prince - Nicollo Machiavelli

Don Quixote - Cervantes

Commentaries on the Gallic Wars - Caesar

Candide - Voltaire (this one is awesome)

All Dumas

All Dostoyevsky

I am in the middle of War and Peace by Tolstoy, and loving it.