25 19th century novels people have read and want to read

[Anonymous]

I’ve read 17 I think. I honestly can’t remember if I’ve read David copperfield or middle March so that would be 19.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Demographic breakdown (age, gender etc.)

https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/InternalResults_160119_books_w.pdf

So men don't read Jane Austen and women don't read Moby Dick.

Interesting. Moby Dick is a masterpiece. But Jane Austen? She is second only to Shakespeare.

[Anonymous]

I've read all except for the russian ones, including a few of the french ones in french. I've read every Hardy (I think!). Tess is not my favorite. Try Return of the Native or Far from the Madding Crowd.

[Anonymous]

I have read all 20. The Brothers K is the best? But Moby Dick is my favorite.

Vanity Fair is much better if you have a good understanding of British politics at the time. Otherwise you miss 90% of the jokes.

[Anonymous]

I’ve read 19 of these! Most of them are great reads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only ones from that list I haven’t read are Frankenstein, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and The Brothers Karamazov (this one I started but haven’t finished).

My favorites from the list are probably War and Peace (seriously outstanding), Middlemarch, Vanity Fair, and Pride and Prejudice. I love 19th century fiction and would say that everything on the list is worth a read (plus some Trollope!).

I've started and failed to finish this one a couple of times. Have read most of the rest of the list. Vanity Fair is amazing; my mentor in grad school hated it and called it fluff, but I've read it twice.

I enjoyed Vanity Fair the most out of the 16 that I've read. Were you a woman and your mentor a man?

I had to read 3 of them for school. Crime & Punishment for 12th Grade AP English and Heart of Darkness and Middlemarch in college English classes.

I can't get into Dickens. I liked Great Expectations the best. My best friend gave me a Dickens collection as a present and that's why I read most of the ones I did. I didn't care for them. But I learned about serialization from them. I had Hard Times in college English and don't remember anything about it except character names. I had to confirm that it wasn't Bleak House.

I read Moby Dick during a summer where I was traveling abroad and didn't have the language chops to watch local T.V. I liked it a lot since I had time to be patient with it.

I liked Louisa May Alcott's writing but prefer the lesser known Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom pairing to Little Women. Also other books she wrote. My family had a large set of her works.

It's been a long time since I read all the Austen, but I believe I liked Emma better than S&S back in the day.

Really disliked Middlemarch - terrible slog. Found all of the characters tedious. Felt the same about Wuthering Heights (not on the list) - I had no sympathy for all the wailing and teeth-gnashing of Heathcliff and Cathy.

I am most interested in reading War and Peace and Anna Karenina of the ones I haven't tackled.

[Anonymous]

I've read all of them except Oliver Twist. I've read about of 5 Dickens's novels and that's enough for me.

Agree, I wish there was some Trollope on there.

To a PP, Wilkie Collins is fun. Both Woman in White and The Moonstone are entertaining.

[Anonymous]

I’ve read 15 of them. Vanity Fair and Moby Dick are two of my favorite books. I hated A Tale of Two Cities, but now I’m thinking I should read it again and give it another chance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tess of the D'Urbervilles, The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina, and War and Peace were such significant books for me. I guess I like high drama in bad times in cold places.

But it's kind of sad this generation of kids is not going to read, much less be moved, by 19th Century literature. I think Gen X is the end for when literature mattered.

Dorian Gray is my 16 year old’s favorite book. She’s read two others on that list (on her own, not for school), and I expect she’ll read more as she gets older.

These books generally aren’t assigned for school anymore, so they have to really be readers and seek them out, so yeah, not a huge number of kids doing that.

[Anonymous]

Jane Eyre should be on this list!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jane Eyre should be on this list!

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tess of the D'Urbervilles, The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina, and War and Peace were such significant books for me. I guess I like high drama in bad times in cold places.

But it's kind of sad this generation of kids is not going to read, much less be moved, by 19th Century literature. I think Gen X is the end for when literature mattered.

Dorian Gray is my 16 year old’s favorite book. She’s read two others on that list (on her own, not for school), and I expect she’ll read more as she gets older.

These books generally aren’t assigned for school anymore, so they have to really be readers and seek them out, so yeah, not a huge number of kids doing that.

They may get there. My freshman year, I took an amazing class centered on three novels, and at the end of the semester the professor gave us a list of suggested books to put on our "to read" list. I was inspired to read most of them, and I still have the list 39 years later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've read all except for the russian ones, including a few of the french ones in french. I've read every Hardy (I think!). Tess is not my favorite. Try Return of the Native or Far from the Madding Crowd.

^^adding, I really admire you who have read the Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. I have only read excerpts. Can't even do Dostoyevsky's short stories.

[Anonymous]

I've read all of them except for Moby Dick.

I am offended that Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre are not on this list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've read all except for the russian ones, including a few of the french ones in french. I've read every Hardy (I think!). Tess is not my favorite. Try Return of the Native or Far from the Madding Crowd.

^^adding, I really admire you who have read the Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. I have only read excerpts. Can't even do Dostoyevsky's short stories.

I think Tolstoy is very readable if you're used to reading long 19th century novels. Both Anna Karenina and War and Peace are no harder, in my mind, than Middlemarch or Moby Dick. Now, The Brothers Karamazov is a different story. I found that one difficult, though I tried it in my 20s, so maybe I should revisit. Crime and Punishment is very readable, though.