I'm going back to read the classics I missed
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Anonymous
They aren't my personal standards, but given expectations generally - this wiki page covers it pretty well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_book |
Anonymous
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Two of my favorite "classics" authors that I haven't seen mentioned yet are Trollope (Victorian author - start with the Barsetshire series) and Zola - Germinal is the most-read.
While it's true that women are often overlooked in the classics canon, or were not supported to remain in publication, there are many more accessible books by women than people realize. Check out both Virago and Persephone publications that publish books mainly by women that are under-published. Admittedly, these are virtually all English-language books. Here are some of my favorite women authors that I consider "classics" in no particular order, just as they come to mind. Yes, a few are modern, but I consider them classics already: Jane Austen Fanny Burney Virginia Woolf George Eliot the Brontës Willa Cather Edith Wharton Barbara Pym Shirley Jackson Sigrid Undset Tove Jansson Cora Sandel Selma Lagerlof Gertrude Stein Dorothy Canfield-Fisher Rebecca West Dorothy Richardson Mrs. Oliphant Harriet Martineau Toni Morrison Vita Sackville-West Doris Lessing Elizabeth Gaskill Flannery O'Connor Eudora Welty Marguerite Duras Colette I'm sure there are a ton more that aren't coming to mind at the moment. I'm happy to provide more detailed info or specific reading suggestions for any of the above! |
Anonymous
From the list of authors above, what are your 3 "must read" books? |
Anonymous
You should take the "modern" classics out and form a separate list. Otherwise this just reads as a list of random favorites to one particular person. |
Anonymous
Also: Mary Shelley Daphne de Maurier Emily Dickinson Louisa May Alcott Frances Hodgson Burnett Harper Lee |
Anonymous
| another woman - Ayn Rand |
Anonymous
She wrote philosophy primarily didn't she? Not fiction? |
Anonymous
The Fountainhead certainly contained a heavy dose of her philosophy, but I’d still consider it fiction. I never read Atlas Shrugged, but I think it is also a novelization of her philosophy. A lot of classics were written to convey a specific message, sometimes that’s what makes them a classic. |
Anonymous
Thanks I have a PhD in English literature. I understand what the classics are and how they are defined. I think boiling this huge quantity of literary works down to just "something to convey a specific message" is a very limited take. |
Anonymous
Only 3? Without overthinking, Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West. I tried to pick three that I don't remember being mentioned earlier on the thread. |
Anonymous
I read Moby Dick last year. What a great book. And I know so much about whales now. |
Anonymous
You know its not a book about whales, right? |
Anonymous
Melville actually goes into a lot of detail about the various types of whales that would be encountered. But yes, the book is not just about whales. |
Anonymous
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I'd add Barbara Comyns, Jean Rhys, Nell Dunn, Sylvia Townsend Warner to the list of great female writers (think Virago classics era).
Also can't recommend enough Margaret Laurence, a Canadian who no one seems to know outside Canada but both her novels and her short stories are phenomenal (if very Canadian). |
Anonymous
I went to a small private school where they made us read Crime and Punishment for like 3 years in a row. I have never been able to finish it! |