A Reading List of the Best 19th Century Novels

The novels of the 19th century remain some of the most taught literary works of any period. They not only continue to influence the canon but also cinema and popular culture. Get better acquainted with these groundbreaking works with this reading list, categorized by author. The most popular authors from the era--Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Nathaniel Hawthorne--appear on this list in alphabetical order.

• Little Women

• Emma
• Mansfield Park
• Persuasion
• Pride and Prejudice

• Lorna Doone

• Lady Audley’s Secret

• Jane Eyre
• Villette

• Wuthering Heights

• The Secret Garden

• Erewhon

• Sartor Resartus

• Alice in Wonderland
• Through the Looking Glass

• Armadale
• No Name
• The Moonstone
• The Woman in White

• Rodney Stone
• A Study in Scarlet

• Heart of Darkness
• Lord Jim

• The Last of the Mohicans
• The Prairie

• Red Badge of Courage

• Bleak House
• David Copperfield
• Dombey & Son D
• Great Expectations
• Hard Times
• Little Dorritt
• Mystery Of Edwin Drood
• Nicholas Nickleby
• The Old Curiosity Shop
• Oliver Twist
• Pickwick Papers
• Tale of Two Cities

• Sybil, or The Two Nations

• Brothers Karamazov
• Crime and Punishment
• The Idiot

• Sister Carrie

• The Count of Monte Cristo
• Three Musketeers

• Adam Bede
• Daniel Deronda
• Middlemarch
• Mill on the Floss
• Silas Marner

• Madame Bovary
• A Sentimental Education

• Cranford
• Wives and Daughters

• New Grub Street

• Elective Affinities

• Dead Souls

• Far from the Madding Crowd
• Jude the Obscure
• The Mayor of Casterbridge
• The Return of the Native
• Tess of the d’Urbervilles
• The Woodlanders
• Under the Greenwood Tree

• Blithedale Romance
• Scarlet Letter

• Les Miserables
• The Hunchback of Notre-Dame de Paris

• The American
• The Bostonians
• Daisy Miller
• The Europeans
• Portrait of a Lady
• Washington Square

• Uncle Silas

• Lilith
• Phantastes

• Moby Dick
• Redburn
• Typee

• Diana of the Crossways
• The Egoist

• McTeague

• The Perpetual Curate
• Salem Chapel

• The Antiquary
• The Heart of Mid-Lothian
• Ivanhoe

• Black Beauty

• Frankenstein

• Catriona (aka David Balfour)
• Kidnapped
• The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
• Treasure Island

• Dracula

• Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• Barry Lyndon
• The History of Henry Esmond
• The Newcomes
• Vanity Fair

• Anna Karenina
• Resurrection
• The Forged Coupon
• War and Peace

• Ayala's Angel
• Framley Parsonage
• Barchester Towers
• John Caldigate
• The Last Chronicle of Barset
• Marion Fay
• Phineas Finn
• The Prime Minister
• The Warden
• The Way We Live Now

• Fathers and Children

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc

• Around the World in 80 Days
• Journey to the Center of the Earth
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

• Invisible Man
• Island of Dr Moreau
• The Time Machine
• War of the Worlds

• Picture of Dorian Gray

• L’Assommoir
• Therese Raquin