The Classics Club

The Classics ClubThe Classics Club was founded in March 2012 with the aim of encouraging more people to blog about classic literature.  Members are invited to create a list of at least 50 classic titles they intend to read and blog about within a maximum of five years.  With characteristic over-enthusiasm, I originally set myself the goal of reading the 50 classics listed below between 1st January 2017 and 31st December 2018.   I have now amended my end date goal to 31st December 2021, although I hope I may finish before then. I add links to my reviews once I have read them.

When constructing my list, the personal definition of “classic” I used is a book published more than 40 years ago, i.e. anything published before 1976, although most of the books on my list are a good deal older than that.  I also decided to concentrate on two categories: women writers; and the works of John Buchan (one of my favourite authors who I believe is much underrated).

Women Writers

  1. Gothic Tales – Elizabeth Gaskell
  2. Memento Mori – Muriel Spark
  3. Romola – George Eliot
  4. Good Morning, Midnight – Jean Rhys
  5. The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. Le Guin
  6. The Enchanted April – Elizabeth von Armin
  7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
  8. The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson
  9. Lady Susan – Jane Austen
  10. Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
  11. A Garden of Earthly Delights – Joyce Carol Oates
  12. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson
  13. Carol (The Price of Salt) – Patricia Highsmith
  14. The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West
  15. The Flowers of Adonis – Rosemary Sutcliffe
  16. Death Comes for the Archbishop – Willa Cather
  17. The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
  18. All Passion Spent – Vita Sackville-West
  19. The Town House – Norah Lofts
  20. Katherine – Anya Seton
  21. Heat and Dust – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
  22. Invitation to the Waltz – Rosamond Lehmann
  23. Villette – Charlotte Bronte
  24. To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
  25. The Dark Tide – Vera Brittain
  26. The Crowded Street – Winifred Holtby
  27. Gaudy Night – Dorothy L Sayers
  28. The Bell – Iris Murdoch
  29. The Time Machine – H. G. Wells
  30. Fear of Flying – Erica Jong
  31. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers
  32. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith
  33. I Capture the Castle – Dodie Smith
  34. The Good Earth – Pearl S. Buck
  35.  In a German Pension: 13 Stories – Katherine Mansfield
  36. The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
  37. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont – Elizabeth Taylor
  38. The Edible Woman – Margaret Atwood

John Buchan

  1. The Power House
  2. Sick Heart River
  3. A Lost Lady of Old Years
  4. Witch Wood
  5. Mr. Standfast
  6. Castle Gay
  7. The Half-Hearted
  8. The Watcher by the Threshold
  9. John Macnab
  10. Greenmantle
  11. Sir Quixote of the Moors
  12. John Burnet of Barns