<p>So many books, so little time. Anyone, novice or expert, who is interested in reading classic literature might feel overwhelmed by the number of works categorized as &#34;Classics.&#34; So, where should you get started?</p><p>The list below contains 101 works spanning multiple countries and subjects. It is meant to be a &#34;get started&#34; or &#34;find something new&#34; list for anyone on their own personal classic reading quest.</p><p>This list is far from comprehensive. In retrospect, for example, we would certainly add John Steinbeck&#39;s <em>The Grapes of Wrath</em> (1939), among others. But this is a wonderful resource to get you started!</p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td height="20">The Count of Monte Cristo (1845)</td><td>Alexandre Dumas</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Three Musketeers (1844)</td><td>Alexandre Dumas</td></tr><tr><td height="20"><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/classic-literature-study-guides-4133242" data-type="internalLink" data-component="link" data-source="inlineLink" data-ordinal="1">Black Beauty (1877)</a></td><td>Anna Sewell</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Agnes Grey (1847)</td><td>Anne Brontë</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848)</td><td>Anne Brontë</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Prisoner of Zenda (1894)</td><td>Anthony Hope</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Barchester Towers (1857)</td><td><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/classic-literature-4133245" data-type="internalLink" data-component="link" data-source="inlineLink" data-ordinal="2">Anthony Trollope</a></td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Complete Sherlock Holmes (1887-1927)</td><td>Arthur Conan Doyle</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Dracula (1897)</td><td>Bram Stoker</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883)</td><td>Carlo Collodi</td></tr><tr><td height="20"><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/a-tale-of-two-cities-review-741475" data-type="internalLink" data-component="link" data-source="inlineLink" data-ordinal="3">A Tale of Two Cities (1859)</a></td><td>Charles Dickens</td></tr><tr><td height="20">David Copperfield (1850)</td><td>Charles Dickens</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Great Expectations (1861)</td><td>Charles Dickens</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Hard Times (1854)</td><td>Charles Dickens</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Oliver Twist (1837)</td><td>Charles Dickens</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Westward Ho! (1855)</td><td>Charles Kingsley</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Jane Eyre (1847)</td><td>Charlotte Brontë</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Villette (1853)</td><td>Charlotte Brontë</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Sons and Lovers (1913)</td><td>D.H. Lawrence</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Robinson Crusoe (1719)</td><td>Daniel Defoe</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Moll Flanders (1722)</td><td>Daniel Defoe</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Tales of Mystery &amp; Imagination (1908)</td><td>Edgar Allan Poe</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Age of Innocence (1920)</td><td>Edith Wharton</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Cranford (1853)</td><td>Elizabeth Gaskell</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Wuthering Heights (1847)</td><td>Emily Brontë</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Secret Garden (1911)</td><td>Frances Hodgson Burnett</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Crime and Punishment (1866)</td><td><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/crime-and-punishment-quotes-2-739396" data-type="internalLink" data-component="link" data-source="inlineLink" data-ordinal="4">Fyodor Dostoyevsky</a></td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Brothers Karamazov (1880)</td><td>Fyodor Dostoyevsky</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)</td><td>G.K. Chesterton</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Phantom Of The Opera (1909-10)</td><td>Gaston Leroux</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Middlemarch (1871-72)</td><td>George Eliot</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Silas Marner (1861)</td><td>George Eliot</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Mill on the Floss (1860)</td><td><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/quotations-4133229" data-type="internalLink" data-component="link" data-source="inlineLink" data-ordinal="5">George Eliot</a></td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Diary of a Nobody (1892)</td><td>George and Weedon Grossmith</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Princess and the Goblin (1872)</td><td>George MacDonald</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Time Machine (1895)</td><td>H.G. Wells</td></tr><tr><td height="20"><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/quotations-4133229" data-type="internalLink" data-component="link" data-source="inlineLink" data-ordinal="6">Uncle Tom&#39;s Cabin (1852)</a></td><td>Harriet Beecher Stowe</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Walden (1854)</td><td>Henry David Thoreau</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Aspern Papers (1888)</td><td>Henry James</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Turn of the Screw (1898)</td><td>Henry James</td></tr><tr><td height="20">King Solomon&#39;s Mines (1885)</td><td>Henry Rider Haggard</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Moby Dick (1851)</td><td>Herman Melville</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Odyssey (circa 8th C. BC)</td><td>Homer</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Call of the Wild (1903)</td><td>Jack London</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Last of the Mohicans (1826)</td><td>James Fenimore Cooper</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Emma (1815)</td><td>Jane Austen</td></tr><tr><td height="20"><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/jane-austens-mansfield-park-1814-739038" data-type="internalLink" data-component="link" data-source="inlineLink" data-ordinal="7">Mansfield Park (1814)</a></td><td>Jane Austen</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Persuasion (1817)</td><td>Jane Austen</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Pride and Prejudice (1813)</td><td>Jane Austen</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Pilgrim&#39;s Progress (1678)</td><td>John Bunyan</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Gulliver&#39;s Travels (1726)</td><td>Jonathan Swift</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Heart of Darkness (1899)</td><td>Joseph Conrad</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Lord Jim (1900)</td><td>Joseph Conrad</td></tr><tr><td height="20">20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1870)</td><td>Jules Verne</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Around the World in Eighty Days (1873)</td><td>Jules Verne</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Awakening (1899)</td><td>Kate Chopin</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)</td><td>L. Frank Baum</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Tristram Shandy (1759-1767)</td><td>Laurence Sterne</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Anna Karenina (1877)</td><td>Leo Tolstoy</td></tr><tr><td height="20">War and Peace (1869)</td><td>Leo Tolstoy</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Alice&#39;s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)</td><td>Lewis Carroll</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Through the Looking-Glass (1871)</td><td>Lewis Carroll</td></tr><tr><td height="20"><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/little-women-for-study-and-discussion-740567" data-type="internalLink" data-component="link" data-source="inlineLink" data-ordinal="8">Little Women (1868-69)</a></td><td>Louisa May Alcott</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)</td><td>Mark Twain</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)</td><td>Mark Twain</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Frankenstein (1818)</td><td>Mary Shelley</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Don Quixote of La Mancha (1605 &amp; 1615)</td><td>Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Twice-Told Tales (1837)</td><td>Nathaniel Hawthorne</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Scarlet Letter (1850)</td><td>Nathaniel Hawthorne</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Prince (1532)</td><td>Niccolò Machiavelli</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Four Million (1906)</td><td>O. Henry</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)</td><td><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/classic-literature-4133245" data-type="internalLink" data-component="link" data-source="inlineLink" data-ordinal="9">Oscar Wilde</a></td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)</td><td>Oscar Wilde</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Metamorphoses (circa 8 AD)</td><td>Ovid</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Lorna Doone (1869)</td><td>R. D. Blackmore</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)</td><td>Robert Louis Stevenson</td></tr><tr><td height="20"><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/treasure-island-study-questions-741724" data-type="internalLink" data-component="link" data-source="inlineLink" data-ordinal="10">Treasure Island (1883)</a></td><td>Robert Louis Stevenson</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Kim (1901)</td><td>Rudyard Kipling</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Jungle Book (1894)</td><td>Rudyard Kipling</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Ivanhoe (1820)</td><td>Sir Walter Scott</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Rob Roy (1817)</td><td>Sir Walter Scott</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Red Badge of Courage (1895)</td><td>Stephen Crane</td></tr><tr><td height="20">What Katy Did (1872)</td><td>Susan Coolidge</td></tr><tr><td height="20"><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles-review-741594" data-type="internalLink" data-component="link" data-source="inlineLink" data-ordinal="11">Tess of the d&#39;Urbervilles (1891-92)</a></td><td>Thomas Hardy</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Mayor Of Casterbridge (1886)</td><td>Thomas Hardy</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Utopia (1516)</td><td>Thomas More</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Rights of Man (1791)</td><td>Thomas Paine</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Les Misérables (1862)</td><td>Victor Hugo</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819-20)</td><td>Washington Irving</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Moonstone (1868)</td><td>Wilkie Collins</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Woman in White (1859)</td><td>Wilkie Collins</td></tr><tr><td height="20">A Midsummer Night&#39;s Dream (1600)</td><td><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/william-shakespeare-biography-735851" data-type="internalLink" data-component="link" data-source="inlineLink" data-ordinal="12">William Shakespeare</a></td></tr><tr><td height="20">As You Like It (1623)</td><td>William Shakespeare</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Hamlet (1603)</td><td>William Shakespeare</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Henry V (1600)</td><td>William Shakespeare</td></tr><tr><td height="20">King Lear (1608)</td><td>William Shakespeare</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Othello (1622)</td><td>William Shakespeare</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Richard III (1597)</td><td>William Shakespeare</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Merchant of Venice (1600)</td><td>William Shakespeare</td></tr><tr><td height="20">The Tempest (1623)</td><td>William Shakespeare</td></tr><tr><td height="20">Vanity Fair (1848)</td><td><p>William Thackeray</p></td></tr></tbody></table>