A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.” — Italo Calvino
I signed up for Classics Club some time ago but neglected to make up a list of fifty titles that I would read by the end of 2020. I’ve now read many of them (indicated by read or reread): these were/are all books on my shelves so I haven’t had to have recourse to the library to make up the fifty. (Not sure if that’s shameful or not…)
What is a classic? In my book it’s a title that has stood the test of time — however long that is — and will include children’s fiction, classical and foreign texts in translation as well as those deemed modern classics (mostly 20th century).
The List
Apollonius: Jason and the Golden Fleece
Petronius Arbiter: The Satyricon
‘BB’ [D J Watkins-Pitchford] : The Little Grey Men read
J M Barrie: Peter Pan
William Beckford: Vathek
Elinor M Brent-Dyer: The New House at the Chalet School read
Anne Bronte: Agnes Grey read
Charlotte Bronte: Shirley read
Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre read
Frances Hodgson Burnett: A Little Princess
Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Secret Garden read
Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Return of Tarzan
Thomas Carlyle: Sartor Resartus
Anton Chekhov: Early Stories read
Michael Crichton: The Andromeda Strain read
Edmund Crispin: The Case of the Gilded Fly
Edmund Crispin: The Moving Toyshop read
Charles Dickens: Pictures from Italy
Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist
George Eliot: Middlemarch
Hermann Hesse: The Glass Bead Game
Hermann Hesse: Steppenwolf read
Henry James: Daisy Miller read
Henry James: The Spoils of Poynton read
Henry James: The Aspern Papers read
Henry James: The Turn of the Screw read
M R James: Collected Short Stories
Tove Jansson: The Summer Book read
Tove Jansson: Art in Nature read
Charles Kingsley: Hypatia
Charles Kingsley: Westward Ho!
Rudyard Kipling: Kim
D H Lawrence: The Princess and other stories
Niccolò Machiavelli: The Prince
Daphne du Maurier: Rebecca
George du Maurier: Trilby
John Milton: Comus
L M Montgomery: Anne of Green Gables
E Nesbit: The Power of Darkness
E Nesbit: The New Treasure Seekers read
Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan read
Mervyn Peake: Gormenghast
Mervyn Peake: Titus Alone
John Polidori: The Vampyre read
Jean Rhys: Wide Sargasso Sea read
N K Sandars (translator): The Epic of Gilgamesh read
Mary Shelley: Frankenstein read
Georges Simenon: Maigret in Holland read
Mark Twain: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto
Read: 23 (January 2020)
