Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen in 'Condign Jane'. Blueprint/Ecosse/Kobal/Shutterstock
"The person, be information technology gentleman or lady, who has not pleasance in a proficient novel, must be intolerably stupid," writes Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey. Simply while there are many, many novels out there to enjoy, some are considered arguably greater or more than important than others - whether for their excellent prose, idea-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 point in their lifetime - many of which are still included on school reading lists today.
From Harper Lee's exploration of racial tensions in To Kill a Mockingbird, to Emily Brontë's gothic romance Wuthering Heights, and F Scott Fitzgerald's masterpieceThe Great Gatsby, these are the classic books to revisit - or add together to your reading list right now.
For more reading inspiration, see our guide to the best modern dearest stories, the 10 ultimate summer reads, and uplifting books to heave your spirits - or get lost in our round-upward of absorbing, thrilling page-turners.
oneTo Impale a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
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Harper Lee'southward classic tale set in 1930s Alabama is perchance the seminal text on racial tensions in the Deep South. The story follows the white lawyer Atticus Finch as he attempts to save the life of Tom Robinson, a Black homo falsely accused of raping a white adult female. By being narrated by Finch'south 6-year-old daughter Sentry, the unfairness and incomprehensibility of the situation is illuminated further, seen through the eyes of an innocent kid.
iiThe Catcher in the Rye past JD Salinger
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"If you really want to hear about it, the starting time matter you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood 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 desire to know the truth," so begins JD Salinger's modern take on the coming-of-age story, The Catcher in the Rye. The disillusionment felt past many adolescents in 1950s America is captured brilliantly past the author'southward unconventional hero Holden Caulfield, as he recounts his adventures in New York City over the form of two days after running abroad from home.
3Great Expectations past Charles Dickens
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If you're going to read any of Dickens' works, make information technology Great Expectations, widely regarded as the not bad author's magnum opus. It tells the story of Pip, an orphan who escapes his humble ancestry in gild to win the love of an upper-class girl, Estella. Featuring some of the most memorable characters in the literary canon – from escaped captive Magwitch to jilted bride Miss Havisham – it endures every bit a cautionary tale about the personal price of misguided social advocacy.
4Lord of the Flies by William Golding
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When an airplane crash leaves a group of schoolhouse boys stranded without adults on a deserted tropical isle, information technology'due south non long before their attempts at civilization fail and their base instincts take over. Would-exist leader Ralph tries to set upwards a new order in a mirror epitome of the ane they have left behind, while rival Jack and his followers submit to their darker instincts and go feral. An excellent study into human nature, information technology explores what might happen if we were left to our own devices without the framework of a society, and how humans are also animals at heart.
vThe Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
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Set in a dystopian future, The Handmaid's Tale imagines a globe in which an ecology catastrophe has led to the majority of the female population condign infertile. When a fundamentalist religious grouping seizes command of what was one time the Usa, fertile women are rounded upwardly and trained to be 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 hit Tv set series.
6The Ruby-red Letter past Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Familiar to school children everywhere thanks to its popularity on curriculums, The Scarlet Letter of the alphabet uses symbolism to explore problems including sin, atonement and how appearances can be misleading. Set in the strict Puritan globe of 1640s Boston, it follows the tribulations of Hester Prynne, a woman who is ostracised from lodge and forced to wear a scarlet A (for adulterer) as punishment for committing infidelity, while her partner in crime, who is a major figurehead in this society, atones for his sin in private as she refuses to unmask him.
sevenLolita by Vladimir Nabokov
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"Lolita, light of my life, burn down of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at iii, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta." These are the opening lines of one of the most beautiful and controversial novels in the English language, ironically written by a Russian author, Vladimir Nabokov. Lolita's unreliable narrator, paedophile and poet Humbert Humbert seduces the reader as he does his 12-yr-old stepdaughter, making us 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'southward gothic romance, Wuthering Heights. Written as a reaction against the popular romantic fiction of Jane Austen, it is an altogether darker and more complicated tale, set within a frame narrative and spanning 2 generations. Featuring some of the almost beautiful prose in the English canon, its delineation of Heathcliff and Cathy's doomed love matter haunts the reader long after the book has been put down.
9Lady Chatterley's Lover past DH Lawrence
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When Lady Chatterley's 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 rough-talking Oliver Mellors – a major taboo in inter-war lodge. Today, the novel'south depictions of the sexual exploits of its heroine would barely enhance an eyebrow, even so DH Lawrence'southward tale of love and lust across class barriers was deemed so shocking on publication in 1960 that it was widely banned and even subjected to an obscenity trial.
10The Great Gatsby past F Scott Fitzgerald
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F Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece The Great Gatsby has get synonymous with the Roaring Twenties and the death of the so-chosen American Dream. A modern tragedy, it charts the fall of Jay Gatsby, a newly minted millionaire, as he attempts to win back the beloved of his quondam sweetheart Daisy Buchanan, now married to another wealthy human. In his obsessive quest for wealth and condition, every bit symbolised by Daisy, he neglects to run across her true nature – which ultimately causes his downfall.
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