The idea of The Classics Club  is to make a list of fifty or more classics you want to read within the next five years. There is no strict definition of what constitutes “a classic”. 

What is a classic?  For the purposes of your project list, it’s your choice, really. Modern classics, ancient classics, Eastern canon, Western canon, Persophone, Virago, African literature, children’s classics… You make your own goal, and you decide what is “a classic.”

My Goal: Read 50 ‘classics’ in five years

Start date: August 2012

End date: August 2017  (revised to end 2019)

Progress so far: as of January 2019 I’ve read 40 of the books from my list. I started another four but failed to finish them so I haven’t counted those. Clearly the ‘deadline’ came and went without completion of the list but the Classics Club co-ordinators kindly let me have an extension….. 

About my Classics Club list 

My list is an attempt to fill in the gaps in my reading of the great and the good from the literary world. The eagle eyed among my readers will notice that there are more than 50 titles listed here. The reason is simple: I want plenty of choice so I can pick a novel to suit different moods. 

Some of the authors listed here are people I have never read before (mainly the non British authors like Maupassant or Voltaire).

Others are novels I feel I ought to have read but somehow never got around to it (Crime and Punishment; Washington Square for example).

There is a third category of novels I read long long ago as a teenager (Mrs Dalloway; The Plague) and frankly didn’t understand so I’m hoping my more mature self will do better.

And for those days when I need a book that feels as comfortable as a hot water bottle, there are my old favourites of George Eliot and Jane Austen.

Books I’ve read are in blue and link to my reviews

1. 1. Medea:  — Euripedes 431 BC Read 2012
      
   2. Pamela  —  Samuel Richardson 1740 did not finish
   3. Candide  — Voltaire 1759
   4. The Vicar of Wakefield  — Oliver Goldsmith 1766
   5. Evelina  — Frances Burney 1778
   6. **Mansfield Park   — Jane Austen 1814 Read May 2015   
   7. Ormond – Maria Edgeworth 1817
   8. Old Goriot  — Honore Balzac 1835 Read October 2015   
   9. Old Curiosity Shop  — Charles Dickens 1840 Read March 2015
   10. The Black Sheep  — Honore Balzac 1842
   11. Bleak House  — Charles Dickens 1852 (did not finish)
   12. Basil – Wilkie Collins 1852
   13. Little Dorrit  — Charles Dickens 1855  read Feb-March 2013
   14. North and South  — Elizabeth Gaskell 1855 – read Oct 2012
   15. Dr Thorne  – Anthony Trollope 1858 – read February 2017
   16. Adam Bede  — George Eliot 1859 Read Nov 2015
   17. Tale of Two Cities  — Charles Dickens 1859 – did not finish
   18. Framley Parsonage  – Anthony Trollope 1861 
   19. Wives and Daughters  — Elizabeth Gaskell 1864 read Dec 2014
   20. ** Can You Forgive Her  — Anthony Trollope  1864
   21. Crime and Punishment  — Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 read Feb-March 2013 
   22. The Fortune of the Rougons  — Emile Zola 1871 Read May 2015
   23. The Kill/La Curée – Emile Zola 1871-2
   24. ** Anna Karenina  — Leo Tolstoy 1873-77
   25. The Way we Live Now  by Anthony Trollope – 1875
   26. Daniel Deronda  — George Eliot 1876
   27. L’Assommoir  — Emile Zola 1877 – read March 2014
   28. Washington Square/Daisy Miller  — Henry James 1879 read January 2015
   29. The Brothers Karamazov  — Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880
   30. The Ladies’ Paradise by Emile Zola — read March 2018
   31. The Diary of a Nobody  — George Grossmith 1888 read April 2017
   32. New Grub Street – George Gissing 1891
   33. The Turn of the Screw – Henry James 1898  Read June 2015
   34. Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad 1899
   35. My Brilliant Career — Miles Franklin  1901 Read January 2019
   36. Anna of the Five Towns  — Arnold Bennett 1902
   37. The Secret Agent  — Joseph Conrad 1907
   38. Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett 1910
   39. O pioneers —  Willa Cather  1913
   40. A Room with a View  — E M Forster 1915  Read March 2014
   41. The Voyage Out  — Virginia Woolf 1915
   42. Return of the Solider  — Rebecca West 1917
   43. Gone to Earth  — Mary Webb 1917
   44. My Antonia — Willa Cather 1918 Read May 2017
   45. Age of Innocence  — Edith Wharton 1920 Read August 2018
   46. **Mrs Dalloway  — Virginia Woolf 1925 Read February 2016
   47. **The Lighthouse  — Virginia Woolf 1927
   48. The Last September —  Elizabeth Bowen 1929
   49. Farewell to Arms — Hemmingway 1929 Read March 2013 
   50. All Passion Spent – Vita Sackville West 1932
   51. A Room of One’s Own  — Virginia Woolf 1932 Read August 2017
   52. **Frost in May  — Antonia White 1933
   53. Old Soldiers Never Die – Frank Richards 1933
   54. Turf or Stone  — Margiad Evans 1934
   55. South Riding – Winifred Holtby 1936. Read November 2018
   56. Jamaica Inn – Daphne du Maurier 1936  Read June 2017
   57. Of Mice and Men  — Steinbeck 1937  Read April 2013
   58. The Grapes of Wrath  — John Steinbeck 1939
   59. **The Power and the Glory  — Grahame Greene 1940 Read December 2013
   60. Never No More – Maura Laverty 1942
   61. Cannery Row  — John Steinbeck 1945 Read Dec 2013
   62. **The Plague  — Albert Camus 1947
   63. **Cry, the Beloved Country  — Alan Paton 1948 Finished April 2015
   64. Heart of the Matter  — Grahame Greene 1948 Finished August 2013
   65. Love in a Cold Climate  — Nancy Mitford 1949  Read August 2018
   66. Troy Chimneys  — Margaret Kennedy 1952
   67. The Quiet American  — Graham Greene 1955
   68. The Fall  — Albert Camus 1956
   69. Things Fall Apart  — Chinua Achebe 1958 Read March 2015
   70. The Leopard  — Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 1958 did not finish
   71. The Country Girls  — Edna O’Brien 1960 Read June 2013
   72. We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley Jackson 1962 Read August 2017
   73. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings  — Maya Angelou 1969 – Read Nov 2012
       
   74. Bottle Factory Outing  — Beryl Bainbridge 1974 Read August 2013
   75. The Human Factor — Graham Greene 1978 Read October 2017
   76. The Girls of Slender Means  — Muriel Spark Read Dec 2012
       
   77. Love in the Time of Cholera  — Gabriel Garcia Marquez 1985
   78. The Infinite Plan  — Isabel Allende 1991 Read June 2014
   79. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont  — Elizabeth Taylor 2005 Read April 2014

 

Changes January 2019

Removed:

• A Kiss Before Dying  — Ira Levin 1953

Changes July 2018

Added the following titles

• My Brilliant Career — Miles Franklin  1901
• O pioneers —  Willa Cather  1913
• The Fall  — Albert Camus 1956
• Anna of the Five Towns  — Arnold Bennett 1902
• The Last September —  Elizabeth Bowen 1929
• Old Soldiers Never Die – Frank Richards 1933
• Troy Chimneys  — Margaret Kennedy 1952
• Gone to Earth  — Mary Webb 1917
• Never No More – Maura Laverty 1942
• Return of the Solider  — Rebecca West 1917
• A Kiss Before Dying  — Ira Berlin 1953
• Turf or Stone  — Margiad Evans 1934

Removed:

• Canterbury Tales  —  Geoffrey Chaucer c1380 – read about a quarter so far

Changes November 2016

• Removed A Parisian Affair and other stories  — Guy de Maupassant 1880s. Will find an alternative
• Removed The Charioteer by Mary Renault published 1953
• Removed The Invisible Man by H G Wells published 1897
• Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim published in 1922

Changes November 2015

• Removed The Riddle of the Sands  — Erskine Childers 1903 (started reading it and realised quickly it wasn’t going to be to my taste)
• Added Ormond by Maria Edgeworth. Meant to be one of her finest novels

Changes August 2015

• Added Basil by Wilkie Collins ( I liked most of Collins’ work but have never come across this before)
• Added All Passion Spent – Vita Sackville West . One of her most popular works
• Added New Grub Street – George Gissing 1891. One of the Guardian’s top 100 novels

Changes February 2015

• Removed The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 1967. After hearing details of this via A Year of Reading Dangerously by A Miller I decided it was definitely not my kind of book.
• Added Frost in May by Antonia White 1933. A re-read from many years ago. Will I love it as much second time around?

Changes August 2014

• Removed Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe 1719
• Removed Moby Dick by H Melville

The Undecided List (titles I’m not entirely sure I want to read – but not entirely sure either that I don’t)

• Walter Scott – Waverley
• Tom Jones – Henry Fielding
• Castle of Otranto  – Horace Walpole
• Iron in the Soul – Jean Paul Sartre