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, Persephone, 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:  Long since elapsed 

Progress so far: as of March 2020 I’ve read 49 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 never sent around the classic cops so I suppose I can just continue to read the books. 

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.

All titles marked ** denote that they are re-reads.

Books I’ve read in the Classics Club Challenge

Links are to my reviews

Medea:  — Euripedes 431 BC Read 2012

The Vicar of Wakefield  — Oliver Goldsmith 1766. Read March 2019

Old Goriot  — Honore Balzac 1835 Read October 2015   

**Mansfield Park   — Jane Austen 1814 Read May 2015   

Old Curiosity Shop  — Charles Dickens 1840 Read March 2015

Mary Barton —  Elizabeth Gaskell 1848 Read May 2019

Little Dorrit  — Charles Dickens 1855  read Feb-March 2013

North and South  — Elizabeth Gaskell 1855 – read Oct 2012

Dr Thorne  – Anthony Trollope 1858 – read February 2017

Adam Bede  — George Eliot 1859 Read Nov 2015

Wives and Daughters  — Elizabeth Gaskell 1864 read Dec 2014

Crime and Punishment  — Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 read Feb-March 2013 

The Fortune of the Rougons  — Emile Zola 1871 Read May 2015

The Kill/La Curée – Emile Zola 1871-2 Read April 2019

L’Assommoir — Emile Zola 1877 – read March 2014

Washington Square/Daisy Miller  — Henry James 1879 read January 2015

The Ladies’ Paradise by Emile Zola — read March 2018

The Diary of a Nobody  — George Grossmith 1888 read April 2017

The Turn of the Screw – Henry James 1898  Read June 2015

My Brilliant Career — Miles Franklin  1901 Read January 2019

A Room with a View  — E M Forster 1915  Read March 2014

Return of the Soldier  — Rebecca West 1917 Read January 2019

My Antonia — Willa Cather 1918 Read May 2017

**Mrs Dalloway  — Virginia Woolf 1925 Read February 2016

Farewell to Arms — Hemmingway 1929 Read March 2013 

All Passion Spent – Vita Sackville West 1931 Read September 2019

A Room of One’s Own  — Virginia Woolf 1932 Read August 2017

Turf or Stone  — Margiad Evans 1934 Read March 2020

South Riding – Winifred Holtby 1936. Read November 2018

Jamaica Inn – Daphne du Maurier 1936  Read June 2017

Of Mice and Men  — Steinbeck 1937  Read April 2013

**The Power and the Glory  — Grahame Greene 1940 Read December 2013

Never No More – Maura Laverty 1942 – Read January 2020

Cannery Row  — John Steinbeck 1945 Read Dec 2013

**Cry, the Beloved Country  — Alan Paton 1948 Finished April 2015

Heart of the Matter  — Grahame Greene 1948 Finished August 2013

The Franchise Affair – Josephine Tey 1948 Finished May 2019

Love in a Cold Climate  — Nancy Mitford 1949  Read August 2018

Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote 1950 Read July 2019

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne – Brian Moore 1955 Read November 2019

Things Fall Apart  — Chinua Achebe 1958 Read March 2015

The Country Girls  — Edna O’Brien 1960 Read June 2013

We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley Jackson 1962 Read August 2017

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings  — Maya Angelou 1969 – Read Nov 2012

Bottle Factory Outing  — Beryl Bainbridge 1974 Read August 2013

The Human Factor — Graham Greene 1978 Read October 2017

The Girls of Slender Means  — Muriel Spark Read Dec 2012

The Infinite Plan  — Isabel Allende 1991 Read June 2014

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont  — Elizabeth Taylor 2005 Read April 2014

Abandoned Books

Pamela  —  Samuel Richardson 1740 did not finish

Tale of Two Cities  — Charles Dickens 1859 – did not finish

The Leopard  — Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 1958 did not finish

Remaining From Original List

Evelina  — Frances Burney 1778

Ormond – Maria Edgeworth 1817

The Black Sheep  — Honore Balzac 1842

Bleak House  — Charles Dickens 1852 (did not finish)

Basil – Wilkie Collins 1852

Framley Parsonage  – Anthony Trollope 1861 

** Can You Forgive Her  — Anthony Trollope  1864

** Anna Karenina  — Leo Tolstoy 1873-77

The Way we Live Now  by Anthony Trollope – 1875

Daniel Deronda  — George Eliot 1876

The Brothers Karamazov  — Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880

New Grub Street – George Gissing 1891

Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad 1899

Anna of the Five Towns  — Arnold Bennett 1902

The Secret Agent  — Joseph Conrad 1907

Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett 1910

O pioneers—  Willa Cather  1913

The Voyage Out  — Virginia Woolf 1915

Gone to Earth  — Mary Webb 1917

Age of Innocence  — Edith Wharton 1920

**The Lighthouse — Virginia Woolf 1927

The Last September—  Elizabeth Bowen 1929

Old Soldiers Never Die – Frank Richards 1933

**Frost in May — Antonia White 1933

The Grapes of Wrath  — John Steinbeck 1939

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith 1943

**The Plague  — Albert Camus 1947

The Sheltering Sky – Paul Bowles 1949

Troy Chimneys  — Margaret Kennedy 1952

The Quiet American  — Graham Greene 1955

The Fall — Albert Camus 1956

Love in the Time of Cholera  — Gabriel Garcia Marquez 1985