Since graduating university, my
relationship with classics has changed drastically and I've begun actively
seeking them out. This year I pledged to read a classic a month and so far I've
achieved that goal and so I'm sharing some of my favourites with you.
Persuasion, Jane Austen
288|December 1817
Anne Elliot has few romantic
prospects at 27 after refusing the proposal of a young naval captain eight
years before upon the encouragement of a family friend. But when Captain
Wentworth returns, complete with a fortune, and they cross paths once again,
Anne finds herself just as much in love as she was when they first met. Can they
overcome the hurt and heartache and find their way back to each other?
This is my favourite Austen novel
and it was my mum’s too. With Pride and
Prejudice being the most popular I always imagined that would be top dog in
my heart too, but Anne spoke to me in the most unexpected ways. Though we are
oceans apart in age and situation, I fell in love with with her fierce love for
Wentworth (well, who could blame her?), her capacity for sympathy and
compassion and her passion for literature. And quite frankly, that letter from
Wentworth to Anne alone makes Persuasion worth
a spot on my list.
272|April
1925
Jay Gatsby
has everything a man could want. In his Long Island mansion, bright young
things party the nights away at drinking, dancing and speculating on the
mysterious Gatsby. He may be rich and revered, but the only thing he really
wants, Daisy Buchanan, is still out of his reach.
This was
the novel that reintroduced me to reading classic novels for pleasure and was the
first I read upon completing my English literature degree. It's a very easy
read, but an engaging, thought-provoking one and I loved it. It's the kind of
classic where you yourself can identify the symbolism and the social and
cultural references as well as being enjoyable and forming a connection to the
characters. It's a beautiful novel and a good one to start with if you’re just
venturing into classics or going back in without the aid of your studies for
the first time.
The Island of
Doctor Moreau, HG Wells
160|1896
Edward Prendick is the sole
survivor of the Lady Vain and is rescued by a strange ship carrying a menagerie
of animals. Prendick soon finds himself on an uncharted Pacific island with the
crew of rescuers and the beasts from the ship, and beasts they are. The captain
of the ship Dr Moreau, a brilliant, twisted scientist has been exiled from
English society for his horrific experiments and this island is where he will
continue his work.
I actually studied this novel for
my A-levels and I read it twice over the time I was studying it. Though I didn’t
particularly like it on the first read, as I studied it, re-read it and delved further
into the novel, I grew to love it and it became one of the first classic novels
I fell in love with via education. It’s very short, but it's also gripping,
darkly fascinating and incredibly thought-provoking. It's a science fiction
novel to launch a love of science fiction and a wonderful gateway into
classics, especially as it’s not even 200 pages long!
352|1818
Victor Frankenstein
is obsessed with the idea of creating life. He scavenges body parts from
graveyards, sews them together and brings his creation to life with pulses of
electricity, but his creation is far more than he could ever have imagined. With
fear and terror, Frankenstein abandons the monster leaving it to fend for
itself and learn about the harsh world it has been brought into. Denied the
warmth and compassion of humans through fear, the monster sets out to destroy it's
maker and all he holds dear.
It still
astounds me that Shelley wrote this at the age of nineteen in what was
essentially a challenge between her, her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord
Byron. It’s a Gothic masterpiece and the inspiration to a hoarde of horror
films, but it’s definitely worth reading. This was another that I fell in love
with during my A-levels – the writing is beautiful, the plight of Frankenstein’s
monster is surprisingly emotional and the scope of the story is breath-taking. But
I must warn you: reading this book will cause a lifetime of shouting at people
who call the monster Frankenstein… With great power comes great responsibility,
and all that.
A Room of One’s
Own, Virginia Woolf
112|October 1929
Based on a lecture Woolf
delivered at Girton College, Cambridge, this is a feminist polemic that ranges
from discussions about Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë to Shakespeare’s
imaginary sister to the effect of poverty and consent on a woman’s creativity.
I did an entire module on
Virginia Woolf and her works in my final year of university. I knew very little
about her when beginning the module, but I became a fan of the power in her
beliefs, the Bloomsbury Group, Woolf’s intelligence and her non-fiction, her
essays in particular, even while struggling with her fiction. This was the
first piece of Woolf’s writing outside of her essays and letters that I really connected
with while studying her and it changed the way I looked at both her work and
her life. Woolf is most famous for her death, but she really shouldn’t be.
272|1941
Lady Dona
St Columb is famed in the Restoration Court for being up for anything that
causes trouble or a laugh, but no one knows that she secretly pines for a true
love, freedom from the constraints of her society and adventure spiced with
danger. Dona escapes court life by fleeing to her husband’s family estate in
Cornwall where she meets a pirate who would gamble his life for a speck of
adventure. Soon she must choose between risking her life or losing her new
love.
Now this
is a book that surprised me. Virago relaunched Rebecca, Frenchman’s Creek and Jamaica
Inn in gorgeous new editions, one set for an adult audience and another for
YA shelves and I took part in the blog tour. I devoured a chuck of it on a long
train ride and finished it the next da. I fell in love with the dreamy, lyrical
prose, Dona’s struggles against her society and the dangerous, romantic
adventure she and Jean-Benoit undertake aboard the La Mouette. It's a gorgeous
novel and I highly recommend it.
Dracula,
Bram Stoker
512|May
1897
On a
visit to Transylvania to help Count Dracula secure the purchase of a London
estate, Jonathan Harker sets in motion a terrifying train of events. An unmanned
ship is wrecked in Whitby, the raving of a patient in an asylum start to ring
true and a young woman discovers strange marks upon her neck.
During my
second year of university I took a module about Gothic literature, from what is
said to be the first Gothic novel up until the end of the traditional format in
1890, and of course, Dracula featured
on the list. But I never got further than a few chapters in. I thought it was
boring and it wasn’t what I expected, but this time I listened to a full-cast
Audible recording and I loved it. The story is composed of letters and diary
entries and gives you all sides of the story, and actually rarely features
Dracula himself. It’s tense, dark and brooding and it’s perfect for the dark
and dreary months of Autumn and Winter.
What are your favourite classics?
Have you read any of these?
And Happy Christmas!!
Sophie
You've persuaded me to join you in the classics challenge next year so maybe I'll give some of these a try!
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