Top 10 Classic Novels of all Time

Frankly saying, every top-books list is a mere offense, for literature is something you can’t really esteem nor rate, unlike such mundane things as food or gadgets, sport or quality of services. Mixing together words written by acclaimed classics and all those scary numbers seems promiscuous at any rate. But what if we try to compose a list from the point of view of world-famous authors – Faulkner, Joyce, Beckett, Nabokov – who would dare say they’re incompetent? Nobody.

Of course each top 10 will be influenced by certain geopolitical or personal factor. Leaving apart the most frequently mentioned authors like Shakespeare, Henry James and Faulkner himself, what seems to be most interesting is the so called dark horses, obvious outsiders which let us lift the veil of classics secret preferences and even fetishes. And that’s where you will suddenly encounter Capote, C.S. Lewis, John Dos Passos, Franzen and other equally surprising personalities. Yet, let’s leave literate men’s perversions alone and continue with a showcase top 10 greatest classics ever written list.

10. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy:

Best Classic Novels

An everlasting story of tragic love of rebellious woman and an affectionate man. Anna Karenina, she who rejected her doomed marriage for the sake of passion and Count Vronsky, whose destructive feelings lead to a chain of dramatic events. Widely regarded as an example of realist fiction, Tolstoy considered Anna Karenina his first real novel. Matthew Arnold also once wrote in his celebrated essay on Tolstoy, “We are not to take Anna Karenina as a work of art; we are to take it as a piece of life.” Indeed Anna Karenina is a piece of art that deserves mention on this top 10 list.

9. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov:

Best Classic Novels

Controversial and multiple-valued novel that won Nabokov glory tells about an obsession, a doomed passion for a twelve-year-old girl the main character finds impossible to resist.

8. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy:

Best Classic Novels

19th century Russia, Napoleon, war and details of tangled private life in two citadels of aristocracy. It is considered Tolstoy’s finest literary achievement, along with his other novel Anna Karenina. Tolstoy once shockingly said that War and Peace was “not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle”. Many sections of the book are a philosophical discussion, rather than narrative. Be forewarned!

7. Ulysses by James Joyce:

Best Classic Novels

Often perceived as something unreadable Joyce’s novel is an inimitable example of the “stream of *consciousness” literature.

6. Middlemarch by George Eliot:

Best Classic Novels

This study of provincial life describes multiple characters’ lives in the 1830-s and touches upon some forbidden themes.

5. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad:

Best Classic Novels

This novel is a mans novel through and through. It follows the narrator’s journey into the Congo in the late 1800’s early 1900s – the early imperial era. The readers view his thoughts and ideas on the Dark Continent and the dangers of miscommunication. This book is part of the curriculum for most Modern Europe courses as well as Modern African courses at the university level.

4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald:

Best Classic Novels

The book, often considered as the apex of Fitzgerald’s writing career, in glaring colors paints the life of fabulously rich Jay Gatsby and his love for Daisy Buchanan.

3. Wurthering Heights by Emily Bronte:

Best Classic Novels

Written by Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights was not well received when it was first published in 1847, the book has been named as a timeless classic in the years after. The book has inspired many an adaptation and is one of the most well known stories of all time. The book has some unforgettable characters and is a little hard to deal with initially because of the authors’ descriptive following of the cruelty of the body and of the mind but becomes an absorbing read as it further enfolds.

2. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert:

Best Classic Novels

Bright and telling description of French bourgeoisie. The story focuses on a doctor’s wife, Emma Bovary, who has an affair and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of political life.  When it was first serialized in La Revue de Paris between 1 October 1856 and 15 December 1856, the novel was attacked for obscenity by public prosecutors. After Flaubert’s was acquitted in 1857, Madame Bovary became a bestselling single series.

1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain:

Best Classic Novels

Literally one of the best, if not the best one American novel to ever be written. Read by people of all ages and lifestyles, this book tell us about thrilling adventures of a young boy on the Mississippi River. Intended at first as a simple story of a boy’s adventures in the Mississippi Valley – a sequel to the book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn grew and matured under Twain’s hand into a work of immeasurable art. More than a century after its publication and Twain’s death, the  debate over the symbolic significance of Huck’s and Jim’s voyage is still fresh in every passionate reader’s mind.

Author Bio: Jana Rookard is a market researcher and a reviewer who prefers to write about real estate and latest technologies mainly. Nevertheless, she’s always ready to try something new! This piece of writing presents a quick overview of the greatest books in the history of entire world made for http://localmart.com users and you, guys.