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Penguin's Must-Read Classics

They broke boundaries and challenged conceptions. We asked you for your must-read classics; from iconic bestsellers to lesser-known gems, these are your essential recommends.

https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2022/05/100-must-read-classic-books

#1

Pride and Prejudice

6 Cozy Classics

1811 • 3,502 Readers • 342 pages 4.2

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#2

To Kill a Mockingbird

1960 • 4,571 Readers • 323 pages 4.2

#3

The Great Gatsby

1920 • 4,343 Readers • 180 pages 3.7

#4

One Hundred Years of Solitude

1967 • 2,337 Readers • 396 pages 4.1

#5

In Cold Blood

1959 • 1,146 Readers • 370 pages 4.1

#6

Wide Sargasso Sea

1966 • 349 Readers • 189 pages 3.4

#7

Brave New World

1900 • 3,846 Readers • 332 pages 3.9

#8

I Capture the Castle

1948 • 233 Readers • 410 pages 3.8

#9

Jane Eyre

1846 • 2,422 Readers • 580 pages 4

#10

Crime and Punishment

1857 • 2,570 Readers • 602 pages 4.3

#11

The Secret History

1992 • 2,548 Readers • 578 pages 4.1

#12

The Call of the Wild

1903 • 727 Readers • 142 pages 3.7

#13

Persuasion

19 • 1,053 Readers • 324 pages 4.1

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#14

Les Misérables

#1 of 3 in Los Miserables

7 • 1,140 Readers • 1,711 pages 4.2

#15

Moby Dick

2 Will Eisner Classics

1851 • 1,502 Readers • 731 pages 3.6

#16

To the Lighthouse

1925 • 775 Readers • 326 pages 3.8

#17

The Death of the Heart

1938 • 68 Readers • 418 pages 3.6

#18

Frankenstein

2 Barron's Graphic Classics

-800 • 3,304 Readers • 353 pages 3.9

#19

The Master and Margarita

1918 • 1,275 Readers • 424 pages 4.2

#20

The Go-Between

1953 • 66 Readers • 327 pages 4.1

#21

The Iliad

-800 • 282 Readers • 404 pages 4

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#22

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

1962 • 1,261 Readers • 336 pages 4.1

#23

1984

1949 • 7,419 Readers • 328 pages 4.2

#24

The Catcher in the Rye

200 • 3,676 Readers 3.6

#25

Beloved

#1 of 2 in Beloved Trilogy

1987 • 1,101 Readers • 362 pages 3.9

#26

The Code of the Woosters

#7 of 14 in Jeeves

1938 • 12 Readers • 262 pages 4.5

#27

Dracula

24 • 2,725 Readers • 440 pages 3.9

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#28

The Outsiders

1967 • 1,330 Readers • 229 pages 3.9

#29

The Chrysalids

1955 • 240 Readers • 312 pages 3.7

#30

War and Peace

190 • 1,297 Readers • 838 pages 4.1

#31

Great Expectations

3 Graffex

1860 • 1,160 Readers • 548 pages 3.5

#32

Another Country

1962 • 229 Readers • 448 pages 4

#33

Catch-22

#1 of 2 in Catch-22

1961 • 2,057 Readers • 466 pages 4

#34

The Age of Innocence

1920 • 397 Readers • 370 pages 4

#35

Things Fall Apart

#1 of 3 in The African Trilogy

1958 • 861 Readers • 185 pages 3.6

#36

Middlemarch

#2 of 2 in Middlemarch (2 volumes)

1831 • 669 Readers • 840 pages 4.2

#37

Rebecca

1938 • 1,419 Readers • 428 pages 4.1

#38

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

1891 • 481 Readers • 360 pages 3.7

#39

Vanity Fair

#1 of 2 in Vanity Fair

1847 • 224 Readers • 922 pages 3.6

#40

Brideshead Revisited

1930 • 361 Readers • 351 pages 3.8

#41

Madame Bovary

19 • 746 Readers • 256 pages 3.6

#42

The Mill on the Floss

1800 • 128 Readers • 510 pages 3.8

#43

Barchester Towers

#2 of 6 in Chronicles of Barsetshire

1857 • 42 Readers • 576 pages 4.1

#44

Lady Chatterley's Lover

1928 • 168 Readers • 302 pages 3.5

#45

The Count of Monte Cristo

6 Le Comte de Monte-Cristo

1830 • 2,247 Readers • 1,276 pages 4.3

#46

The Grapes of Wrath

1939 • 1,604 Readers • 496 pages 3.8

#47

Ulysses

1922 • 39 Readers • 736 pages 4

#48

East of Eden

1939 • 1,678 Readers • 601 pages 4.5

#49

The Lord of the Rings

#1-3 of 3 in The Lord of the Rings

20 • 1,997 Readers • 1,178 pages 4.5

#50

The Brothers Karamazov

1878 • 1,612 Readers • 908 pages 4.4

#51

Buddenbrooks

1901 • 123 Readers • 768 pages 4.1

#52

Lolita

1954 • 2,004 Readers • 331 pages 3.9

#53

The Secret Garden

1865 • 1,195 Readers • 292 pages 4

#54

Scoop

1938 • 69 Readers • 284 pages 3.7

#55

Love in a Cold Climate

#2 of 3 in Radlett and Montdore

1949 • 27 Readers • 256 pages 4

#56

A Tale of Two Cities

1 Oxford Bookworms

19 • 1,406 Readers • 544 pages 3.6

#57

The Diary of a Nobody

1889 • 56 Readers • 176 pages 3.3

#58

Anna Karenina

1877 • 1,700 Readers • 1,480 pages 4

#59

The betrothed

1800 • 51 Readers • 696 pages 3.2

#60

Orlando

1919 • 457 Readers • 333 pages 3.8

#61

Atlas Shrugged

30 • 870 Readers • 946 pages 3.2

#62

The Time Machine

3 Saddleback Classics

1894 • 1,533 Readers • 144 pages 3.7

#63

The Art of War

-500 • 1,181 Readers 3.7

#64

The Forsyte Saga

#1-3 of 8 in The Forsyte Chronicles

1922 • 76 Readers • 953 pages 4.1

#65

Travels with Charley

1961 • 217 Readers • 214 pages 4.1

#66

Tropic of Cancer

#1 of 3 in Tropic

1934 • 251 Readers • 318 pages 3.3

#67

Don Quixote

1605 • 86 Readers • 996 pages 3.9

#68

Staying On

#2 of 2 in The Raj Quartet

1977 • 15 Readers • 234 pages 4

#69

Wind in the Willows

1908 • 5 Readers • 272 pages 4

#70

The Quiet American

101 • 193 Readers • 272 pages 3.9

#71

Wuthering Heights

Continuum Contemporaries

1847 • 2,168 Readers • 376 pages 3.6

#72

Perfume

2014 • 17 Readers • 272 pages 3.6

#73

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

#2 of 4 in Adventures of Tom and Huck

1876 • 1,579 Readers • 327 pages 3.6

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#74

Of Human Bondage

1915 • 190 Readers • 618 pages 4.2

#75

Bleak House

1852 • 309 Readers • 682 pages 4

#76

Sense and Sensibility

1811 • 1,153 Readers • 432 pages 3.8

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#77

The Picture of Dorian Grey

1890 • 3,102 Readers • 186 pages 4.1

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#78

A Christmas Carol

#1 of 1 in The Christmas Books of Charles Dickens

195 • 1,188 Readers • 112 pages 4

#79

Silas Marner

1861 • 171 Readers • 256 pages 3.5

#80

Mrs Dalloway

1925 • 852 Readers • 282 pages 3.7

#81

Little Women

#1 of 3 in Little Women

198 • 1,918 Readers • 449 pages 4

#82

The Sea, the Sea

2001 • 130 Readers • 528 pages 4.1

#83

David Copperfield

#1 in David Copperfield

1800 • 608 Readers • 882 pages 4

#84

The Castle

1922 • 387 Readers • 328 pages 3.8

#85

I, Claudius

#1 of 2 in Claudius

1934 • 266 Readers • 432 pages 4.1

#86

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

#1 of 7 in Maya Angelou's Autobiography

1969 • 759 Readers • 309 pages 4.1

#87

A Confederacy of Dunces

1978 • 724 Readers • 338 pages 3.9

#88

The Razor's Edge

1944 • 176 Readers • 314 pages 4.1

#89

Lark Rise to Candleford

#1-3 omnibus of 4 in Lark Rise to Candleford

1939 • 20 Readers • 537 pages 5

#90

The Return of the Native

1878 • 95 Readers • 314 pages 3.8

#91

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

198 • 554 Readers • 384 pages 3.6

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#92

Heart of Darkness

1899 • 1,279 Readers • 132 pages 3.3

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#93

North and South

361 Readers 4.1

#94

The Handmaid's Tale

#1 of 3 in The Handmaid's Tale

1985 • 3,661 Readers • 224 pages 4.1

#95

Giovanni's Room

1956 • 568 Readers • 268 pages 4.4

#96

The Godfather

#1 of 8 in The Godfather

1961 • 675 Readers • 452 pages 4.3

#97

The Woman in White

1859 • 407 Readers • 336 pages 4

#98

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

1 AATSEEL

1962 • 311 Readers • 104 pages 3.9

#99

White Nights

#118 of 14 in Penguin Little Black Classics

1848 • 510 Readers • 31 pages 3.9

#100

Hard Times

1854 • 163 Readers • 358 pages 3.2