Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen in 'Becoming Jane'. Blueprint/Ecosse/Kobal/Shutterstock
"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasance in a good novel, must exist intolerably stupid," writes Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey. But while there are many, many novels out at that place to enjoy, some are considered arguably greater or more important than others - whether for their excellent prose, thought-provoking storylines or the boundaries they broke at the time of publishing. To give yourself a good literary grounding, we've narrowed it downward to 10 must-read novels that everyone should experience at some betoken in their lifetime - many of which are notwithstanding included on schoolhouse reading lists today.
From Harper Lee'southward exploration of racial tensions in To Impale a Mockingbird, to Emily Brontë's gothic romance Wuthering Heights, and F Scott Fitzgerald's masterpieceThe Nifty Gatsby, these are the classic books to revisit - or add to your reading list right now.
For more reading inspiration, run into our guide to the best modern love stories, the x ultimate summer reads, and uplifting books to heave your spirits - or get lost in our round-up of arresting, thrilling folio-turners.
aneTo Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
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Harper Lee's archetype tale set in 1930s Alabama is possibly the seminal text on racial tensions in the Deep S. The story follows the white lawyer Atticus Finch equally he attempts to save the life of Tom Robinson, a Blackness human falsely defendant of raping a white woman. By being narrated by Finch's vi-year-old daughter Picket, the unfairness and incomprehensibility of the situation is illuminated further, seen through the eyes of an innocent child.
2The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
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"If you really want to hear about information technology, the beginning affair you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy babyhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel similar going into it, if you want to know the truth," and so begins JD Salinger's modernistic have on the coming-of-historic period story, The Catcher in the Rye. The disillusionment felt past many adolescents in 1950s America is captured brilliantly by the writer's unconventional hero Holden Caulfield, every bit he recounts his adventures in New York City over the course of two days after running abroad from home.
3Bully Expectations by Charles Dickens
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If you're going to read any of Dickens' works, brand information technology Great Expectations, widely regarded equally the neat author's magnum opus. Information technology tells the story of Pip, an orphan who escapes his humble beginnings in order to win the dear of an upper-class girl, Estella. Featuring some of the most memorable characters in the literary catechism – from escaped captive Magwitch to jilted helpmate Miss Havisham – information technology endures as a cautionary tale about the personal cost of misguided social advocacy.
4Lord of the Flies past William Golding
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When an airplane crash leaves a group of school boys stranded without adults on a deserted tropical island, it's not long earlier their attempts at civilization fail and their base of operations instincts take over. Would-be leader Ralph tries to prepare upwards a new society in a mirror image of the i they accept left behind, while rival Jack and his followers submit to their darker instincts and go feral. An excellent report into man nature, it explores what might happen if we were left to our own devices without the framework of a society, and how humans are besides animals at heart.
5The Handmaid'south Tale past Margaret Atwood
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Set in a dystopian future, The Handmaid'south Tale imagines a globe in which an ecology catastrophe has led to the majority of the female population becoming infertile. When a fundamentalist religious group seizes control of what was once the United states, fertile women are rounded upwards and trained to exist silent, nameless 'handmaids', forced to procreate with the men in power. An important feminist text, Margaret Atwood's novel explores the consequences of a reversal of women's rights and has since been made into a striking Telly serial.
6The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Familiar to school children everywhere cheers to its popularity on curriculums, The Blood-red Letter uses symbolism to explore problems including sin, atonement and how appearances can be misleading. Ready in the strict Puritan world of 1640s Boston, information technology follows the tribulations of Hester Prynne, a adult female who is ostracised from society and forced to habiliment a blood-red A (for adulterer) every bit punishment for committing adultery, while her partner in law-breaking, who is a major figurehead in this society, atones for his sin in private as she refuses to unmask him.
7Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
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"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the natural language taking a trip of three steps downwards the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta." These are the opening lines of ane of the most cute and controversial novels in the English language, ironically written by a Russian author, Vladimir Nabokov. Lolita'southward unreliable narrator, paedophile and poet Humbert Humbert seduces the reader as he does his 12-yr-one-time stepdaughter, making usa complicit in her abduction and his crime.
8Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
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No reading listing would be complete without Emily Brontë's gothic romance, Wuthering Heights. Written every bit a reaction against the popular romantic fiction of Jane Austen, information technology is an altogether darker and more complicated tale, set within a frame narrative and spanning ii generations. Featuring some of the most cute prose in the English canon, its delineation of Heathcliff and Cathy's doomed honey thing haunts the reader long after the book has been put down.
9Lady Chatterley'south Lover by DH Lawrence
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When Lady Chatterley'due south husband Clifford returns from the battlefields of French republic paralysed from the waist down, his emotional distance drives her into an explosive affair with their gamekeeper, the crude-talking Oliver Mellors – a major taboo in inter-state of war gild. Today, the novel's depictions of the sexual exploits of its heroine would barely enhance an eyebrow, all the same DH Lawrence's tale of love and animalism across grade barriers was deemed so shocking on publication in 1960 that information technology was widely banned and even subjected to an obscenity trial.
10The Peachy Gatsby past F Scott Fitzgerald
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F Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece The Great Gatsby has become synonymous with the Roaring Twenties and the death of the and so-called American Dream. A modern tragedy, it charts the fall of Jay Gatsby, a newly minted millionaire, as he attempts to win dorsum the dearest of his former sweetheart Daisy Buchanan, now married to another wealthy man. In his obsessive quest for wealth and status, every bit symbolised by Daisy, he neglects to see her truthful nature – which ultimately causes his downfall.
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