Recommend some books to me

[womzilla]

Assume that I have read no novel published in the 19th century, in any language--I'm embarrassed by the degree this is almost completely true. (I will probably list the few I have read in a comment to this post.)

What are the first 20 or 30 novels I should read to close this chasm of ignorance? And where should I look for other recommendations? I've found a couple of "great novels of the 19th century" lists, but not many.

Oh, it probably doesn't make sense to recommend more than two novels by the same author. And for these purposes, "novel" can include "single, outstanding collection of short fiction and/or drama".

Edited to add: Lots of great stuff recommended so far, though unsurprisingly heavy on English-language works, though French and Russian have shown up. I'm haven't seen any recommendations for anything originally in Italian, German, or Spanish--is there really no one noteworthy in German literature between Goethe and Mann? Or Spanish between Cervantes and Borges?

Comments

[montoya.livejournal.com]

Dickens Tale of Two Cities (set in the French Revolution) is good, reading somewhat like a fantasy novel only without the magic.

Jane Austen is, as you say, delightful.

Dumas' Three Musketeers is okay, but Brust's Phoenix Guards is vastly better.

Beyond that, we get into stuff that I read in high school. Mark Twain's Roughing It and The Innocents Abroad may not be brilliant, but they're fascinatingly matter-of-fact essays about a world that no longer exists, and Twain is a solid stylist. James Fenimore Cooper's Deerslayer is unconscionably bad. I hated Doestoyevesky back then, but I don't think that means much.



Anything other than that is high school lit, and I don't know that I trust my reactions to books I had to read in high school lit.

[esmeraldus-neo.livejournal.com]

"Jane Austen is, as you say, delightful."

Yes. There are only a few, so you can do the complete works fairly easily.