150+ Must-Read Classic Books for Adults

Best classic books to read

Classic literature books aren’t usually a “choice of reading” for many of us, including me. Yet there is something extraordinary about seeing those list of “150 classics worth reading” or  “100 classics to read before you die” on Pinterest or bookstagram.

I always find myself, skimming through the list to tick some of the classic novels that I might have read, often times about three or four, such as  Lord of The Flies, and Pride and Prejudice. Shortly after I always feel excited about the fact that there are still plenty of best classic books to read. 

If you’re someone who have only read the Jane Austin classic, Pride and Prejudice and looking for more classic romance novels you’ll be excited to find similar classics novels from this list. 

Perhaps you’re into  classic dystopian novels for adults like George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and looking for more book of those books.  Either way,  you’ll love this list of 150+ must-read classic novels to read. 

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Why should you read classics?

Italian journalist and short story writer, Italo Calvino in his books Why Read the Classics, explains the vital reasons why classic books are essential.  According to him, only works of enduring cultural value, but also something much more personal. We understand the world, our history, and the universe through these great works of classic literature. Above all classic books are loved by millions of readers and they mean so much more than stories to them. 

Another reason for reading classic novels is that it  helps us understand many of our favorite writers’ literary influences. 

I remember watching one of the interviews of my all-time favorite author Santa Montefiore. She mentions how the classic book ‘Love In The Time Of Cholera’ influenced her writing. 

According to her, renowned author Gabriel García Márquez taught her how to appeal to the readers through senses. And she also notes that it was Elizabeth von Arnim, the author of ‘Enchanted April’, who inspired her to go very deeply into the characters of the books.

If you haven’t read any of Santa Montefiore’s books I highly recommend reading them! Have a look at the book review of one of the recent books The Temptation of Gracie

In this list of must-read classics you’ll be delighted to find many novel that you always wanted read. The best part about this book list is that you can also find some great short classics to read.

Whether you’re looking for best classic books for book clubs or some classic gothic literature to enjoy during the cold season. My list of 150 classic novels have everything you’re looking for. You can also find the published date of each of the classic novels as well. 

More reasons to read classic novels:

• Reading classics enhances your Vocabulary.
• You will be a better reader.
• You will be exposed to cultural references.
• You may become an expert in history.
• You are reading something of great value. 

What are the best ways to enjoy classic books?

Here are some quick tips to enjoy classic books

• Start with making a list of best classic book to read that you would like to love. For example Victorian classics or Theatre classics. 
• Think about genres you love and make the list accordingly.
• List out the movies or TV series which are based on classic literature. 

For example,

Clueless is really the tale of Jane Austen’s Emma; Easy A is a modern high school retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.

• Have patience and read slowly. This can help you understand the characters better.  Go back and reread the sentences if necessary. 
• If possible, do a little bit of primary research about the book. For instance, before I started reading books by Bronte sisters, I read briefly about their family, writing, etc.

Now let’s get started with best classic novels that are worth reading in 2022

Must -read list of classics

1. Aesop’s Fables by Aesop- 560
2. The Odyssey by Homer- 800
3. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer-1390
4. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe- 1719
5. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift-1726
6. Paradise Lost by John Milton-1667
7. Pride and Prejudice– Jane Austen- 1813
8. Wuthering Heights  by Emily Brontë 1847
9. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 1861
10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë- 1847
11. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy- 1877
12. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas- 1844
13. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky-  1866
14. Dracula by Bram Stoker- 1897
15. Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melville- 1851
16. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens – 1859
17. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo-  1862
18. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert- 1856
19. Middlemarch by George Eliot- 1871
20. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy- 1867
21. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens- 1850
22. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad- 1899
23. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens- 1843
24. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne- 1850
25. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley- 1818
26. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain- 1876
27. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy- 1891
28. Persuasion by Jane Austen- 1818
29. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle- 1892
30. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens- 1839
31. Emma by Jane Austen- 1815
32. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll – 1865
33. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas- 1844
34. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen- 1811
35. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray- 1847
36. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins- 1859
37. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy- 1874
38. Bleak House by Charles Dickens- 1853
39. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde-1890
40. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain-1875
41. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe -1827
42. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James-1881
43. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson-1882
44. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells- 1897
45. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo-1831
46. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell- 1877
47. A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen- 1879
48. A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle- 1887
49. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen- 1814
50. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells- 1898
51. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane-1892
52. Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith- 1895
53. The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni- 1827
54. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells- 1895
55. Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy- 1878
56. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy- 1886
57. The Children of the New Forest by Frederick Marryat- 1847
58. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell- 1854
59. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens-  1857
60. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins -1868
61. Jude the Obscure by  Thomas Hardy- 1895
62. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman- 1855
63. 1984 – George Orwell- 1949
64. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald- 1925
65. Catch-22  by Joseph Heller- 1961
66. The Catcher in the Rye  by J.D. Salinger- 1951
67. Animal Farm by George Orwell- 1945
68. Lord of the Flies  by William Golding – 1954
69. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood- 1985
70. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee- 1960
71. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck- 1939
72. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White- 1952
73. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez- 1967
74. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell- 1936
75. Ulysses by James Joyce- 1922
76. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck- 1937
77. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien- 1955
78. On the Road by Jack Kerouac- 1957
79. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie- 1981
80. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry-  1943
81. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame- 1908
82. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier- 1938
83. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.- 1969
84. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett- 1910
85. The Color Purple by Alice Walker- 1982
86. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery-  1908
87. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury- 1953
88. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden- 1997
89. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone -J.K. Rowling- 1997
90. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez- 1985
91. Watership Down by Richard Adams- 1972
92. Beloved by Toni Morrison- 1987
93. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving- 1989
94. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger – 2003
95. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis 1949
96. The Call of the Wild by Jack London- 1903
97. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom – 2003
98. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank- 1947
99. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak – 2005
100. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway- 1926
101. Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne- 1926
102. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – 1988
103. The Stranger by Albert Camus- 1942
104. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway – 1951
105. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper- 1826
106. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith-1943
107. The Story of My Life by Helen Keller-1902
108. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen-  1937
109. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway- 1929
110. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka- 1915
111. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle- 1901
112. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster- 1908
113. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien-  1937
114. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov- 1950
115. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum- 1900
116. The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux- 1909
117. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence- 1913
118. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje- 1992
119. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams- 1945
120. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams Bianco- 1922
121. King Lear by William Shakespeare-1606
122. The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley- 1953
123. Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann- 1901
124. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton- 1920
125. Another Country by James Baldwin- 1962
126. Orlando by Virginia Woolf- 1928
127. Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck- 1962
128. Perfume by Patrick Süskind- 1985
129. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf- 1925
130. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh-  1945
131. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene-1938
132. The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales by Edgar Allan Poe- 1960
133. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis- 1991
134. The Scarlet Pimpernel by  Emmuska Orczy-  1905
135. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn- 1962
136. A Streetcar Named Desire by  Tennessee Williams- 1947
137. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov- 1967
138. Dubliners by James Joyce- 1914
139. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.- 1963
140. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf- 1927
141. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera- 1984
142. A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick- 1977
143. The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery- 1926

Short classics under 200 page

1. Animal Farm by George Orwell
2. The Pearl by John Steinbeck
3. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
4. A Christmas Carol by – Charles Dickens
5. Siddhartha by -Hermann Hesse
6. Night’by Elie Wiesel
7. Letters From A Father To His Daughter by Jawaharlal Nehru
8. The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
9. The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
10. Bonjour tristesse by Françoise Sagan

If you want to get more short classic book recommendations, check this post – 32 Easy Short Classics You Can Actually Read in One Sitting.

How many classics have you read?

What are some of your favroite from this list of 150+ classics novels that are worth-reading? Do you have any more suggestion for this list.

Always curious to hear from you,

Stephy

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