"Villette " is my favorite of all the Bronte novels. After finishing it I immediately reread it. I found it to be an utterly hypnotic, deeply haunting work. A strange, dreamlike, mesmerizing book.
You make books seem so alive and exciting that every time I hear you talk about a book, it rises to near the top of my TBR list. And how wonderful to see your evolution in favorite books! I am especially excited to hear about _Olive_ (which I did not even know about before)!
Read Dombey and Son in August! Really loved it! Our Mutual Friend and Pickwick Papers remain my favourites, but i really adored this book! I intend to read Wives and Daughters soon. It will be my first Elizabeth Gaskell! I am excited! My favourite classic is The Brothers Karamazov.
Well now I’m even more excited for Victober, if that was possible. Ahhh Wives and Daughters. I hear you talking about it and find myself thinking “My friend Molly” 😂 I’m so looking forward to reading Olive! I do love a Katie countdown.
I greatly enjoyed this video and the books you name are wonderful, at least the ones I have read🤭 I love your channel, the passion and the arguments with which you express yourself about your readings, especially the classics📖 It seems to me that our tastes are very similar so I'm glad I found your channel😍 PS: I adore Jane Austen and Charles Dickens very strongly💖
You have wonderful taste in books! I'm so excited to read Wuthering Heights for Victober. I have tried a few times, but not succeeded, but I'm determined this time. I love Wives and Daughters and North and South with all my heart. Gaskell and Austen are two of my favourite authors! I just love all their works so much.
I’ve read all of these except Olive - off to look that up now. My favourite has to be Jane Eyre so I’m glad you gave it an honourable mention! ☺️ Great start to the lists of favourites 👍
I’m so glad we have these videos to look forward to this week! Love your enthusiasm for classics! My favorite classic is Pride and Prejudice. But Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are also on my list. I also love Mansfield Park and North and South. I think it would be hard for me to make a list of 10 because I would want to include all of Austen’s works and that would take up most of the list. I looking forward to reading some more Dickens and Gaskell in Victober!
Hard Times by Charles Dickens is my favorite classic. I read Pride and Prejudice but didn’t love it as much as everybody else. And I’m currently reading Jane Eyre and I think it will become a favorite 😉
Picking a favourite classic is a bit like picking a favourite child, very hard to do. I was given a bunch of abridged Readers digest classics as a child, colourful covers, top and tail gold edging. Seemed to sit on my bookshelf for ages (probably only a few weeks) until I started dipping into them. Jane Eyre, P&P, Robinson Crusoe, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Treasure Island, The Good Earth, Tom Sawyer, Oliver Twist and David Copperfield, Two Years before the Mast, stories of Marie Curie, Helen Keller, Marco Polo and many others all still have a fond place in my heart and I've still kept those books into middle-age. Since read a few of them in their entirety. Frankenstein is a marvel of a book that I've read as an adult and it's a firm favourite. As is Great Expectations. Keep meaning to read The Russian Classic but have't got there yet.
I read Villette last year because of your recommendation, and fell in love with it. I must read Olive for Victober. And thank you for giving praise to Mansfield Park. It’s my favorite Austen.
Villette has to be my favourite book. ❤❤❤ Yes, justice for Fanny! :) I love so many of these, Wuthering Heights & North and South, oh my heart yes, so amazing... I love this video, I need to get Olive, actually never heard of this book! :O
I really recommend Olive - it's very underrated and very incredible. And yes, Mansfield Park, Villette, Wuthering Heights, North and South - all so amazing . . .
Okay I could hear you talk about your favourites for hours - your enthusiasm about Mansfield Park (which I really disliked) makes me want to give it another chance. I hadn't heard of Olive before but it sounds like a fascinating novel. I definitely want to read Our Mutual Friend.
I'm looking forward to finally reading North and South. The only Gaskell I've read is Cranford and I am fond of her prose. Our Mutual Friend is amazing - I listened to the audiobook when we were moving my brother from Macclesfield to Northumberland (an 8 hour round trip) and that book takes you through every single emotion it is possible to feel. Glad to hear more about your favourite classics. :D
I really hope you like North and South. It is so, so good. And I really need to listen to Our Mutual Friend. I've read it so many times but never listened to an audiobook!
Great list, I never tire of hearing your love of classics! My favorites (in no particular order) include Jane Eyre, Emma, Howards End (a new favorite since my reread last year), The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas (an absolute favorite since my teens), The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton, Bleak House and Wives and Daughters.
Love this and so many books you talk about I love and more I now have to read. Wuthering heights is my favourite classic and one of my favourite books ever 😊
Every time I read Pride and Prejudice, I notice new things about the novel. It might be a new connection between events, or it might be a new feeling or focus. This surprises me since the book is a quick read. Perhaps I should re-read more books.
One genre I've always loved is lost or wounded out in the wilderness books (I'm avid backpacker) (e.g. Call of the Wild). There's an emotional but fairly short episode where that happens in Wuthering Heights (I've never seen it included in the movie adaptations).
I really need to read some Trollope! I also am extremely interested in Olive, which I’ll probably try to find today. I’m going to reread Vilette soon. I read it once years ago and didn’t enjoy it. My favorites of all time are: Wuthering Heights/Jane Eyre Sense and Sensibility P & P The Three Musketeers The Count of Monte Cristo
Sarah Elbisser Yes! Which one I like best depends on what day you ask me. I just love both so much, and they’re so different. They deserve a lot more love than they get.
Good choices! I really really need to read The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo! I feel like once I read The Hunchback of Notre Dame this year, The Count of Monte Cristo may be my must-read translated classic for next year. I hear so many, many great things.
OLIVE is hugely overwrought and the baroque descriptions of character and landscape are wearying, but it is compelling and highly recommended. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
I also love Our Mutual Friend, though my favorite Dickens book is Bleak House, which usually gets me some weird looks when I tell people that, haha. But it's just so..........Dickensian to me! The setting, the characters, the names...I just adore it. Might have to reread it at some point.
You seriously make me want to read alllll of the classics! I used to watch the movie adaptations on PBS and would fall in love with the dialogue, the characters and stories. Really great review:-)
Such a wonderful list! There are *so* many Classics that I have yet to read, but some of my favorites (not including Agatha Christie) are: Rebecca, Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, A Christmas Carol, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Mansfield Park and Pride and Prejudice.
I usually skip the comments about the books in videos of that kind, or just read down below, but I really enjoy hearing you talk about the books and your thoughts on them. >
I just read Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend back-to-back. No contest, I'm afraid, Bleak House is a supreme work of art, while Our Mutual Friend is so poorly organized and full of absurd coincidences: Betty Higden dying in Lizzie Hexham's arms being the most ludicrous. Great characters and dialogue, though, particularly the Wilfer family. Not sure of my number 1, but Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White, would be on my list, it's one of the most exciting books I've read. You never seem to read adventure stories, but I would include one, She by H Rider Haggard or Treasure Island.
Personally I think Our Mutual Friend is a stronger book than Bleak House. I love Bleak House - it would make the top 20! - but it doesn't have quite the same emotional resonance for me, and I find the female characters in Our Mutual Friend especially strong. I do enjoy Wilkie Collins - I must reread The Woman in White. I also have read Treasure Island - but I have to admit I found it very boring! Each to their own.
@@katiejlumsden Treasure Island was my gateway into the classics and it still remains a top ten choice as is Dickens’ Pickwick Papers. Loaded with eccentric characters. Love your You Tube presentation. Keep up the good work. (Been meaning to read Jane Austin for a long time. You’ve convinced me I should delay no longer :)
North and South is probably my favorite Victorian novel…it’s just fantastic…! I couldn’t really get into Villette when I tried it years ago but I’m starting it again tonight haha Great list, I love most of these so much too 😊 Oh but Mansfield Park, I still shudder to think of that as two afternoons/way-too-late nights of my life that I’ll never get back, I hated it and it’s unusual for me to hate any Victorian literature! But I’m glad someone likes it 😆
I love this list! You make me look so forward to the books on this list that are still on my TBR :D. Ok, I have to pick 12 but I THINK my list/order from least favorite to most is-12. A Room With a View by EM Forster, 11.Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, 10. Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte 9.And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, 8..Persuasion by Jane Austen 7.Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (but really those last 2 are tied), 6. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, 5.Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, 4. Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope 3.Daniel Deronda by George Eliot (and really those last 3 are all tied again), 2.Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, 1. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (again 1 and 2 are tied lol so really I have top 8 with a lot of ties). Cheers to you for making a list because this is difficult! Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy and Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell are right outside of my list and I had to make the rule not to include plays or William Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde would have taken some spots too. Awesome video Katie! Congrats on 10k, you deserve every one :D.
A very good list! I didn't realise Daniel Deronda was quite so high up, though I knew you loved it. Super interesting. I feel like you need to make a video of this!
@@katiejlumsden truth be told I didn't know it was that high up until I made the list either! But FFMC and Doctor Thorne are definitely tied with it😀. Ooo I'd love to make a video of it! It will be awhile before I film anything new because our furniture is finally back in the house so we are unpacking the house at the moment but I do have a few videos on my phone camera that I need to upload 😀.
I am so silly because I forgot David Copperfield! HOW COULD I FORGET DAVID COPPERFIELD?! Ok 13 then lol. I think it would go between Northanger Abbey and FFMC but it's tied with FFMC, Doctor Thorne, and DD 😀❤️📘
My favorite classic is The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, which is my all-time favorite book! I'm catching up on your Favorites Week videos and thinking about doing a similar thing because this year has not been a good reading year for me but it's a way to still incorporate bookish stuff in my content.
Same here, Jane Eyre was the novel that introduced me to victorian literature. As Flaubert said "Mme Bovary, c'est moi !" (Mrs Bovary is me), I would say Jane Eyre is me - mostly. That book will always have the best place in my heart, as much as I'll always love the ones you quote here with all my heart :)
Loved these picks💛 I was playing a game in my head to see if I could guess which ones you would say . I didn't get the order right but I think picked quite a few 😉💙 I have a lot of these on my list already but I can't wait to get to the ones I haven't read 💛
All these novels are also favourites of mine, except The small house at Alington, which I haven't read (but I hope that it will also turn out to be a favourite). I recently read Olive and I loved it a lot, it's amazing! I love all the books by Charlote Brontë and I agree: Villette is the best!
@@katiejlumsden I have just finished North and South because of your recommendation and I LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOVED IT!!! Loved it!!!!!! Thank you for your enthusiasm for it and your appropriate, glowing praise! It is one of my favorites now by far!
Catching up on all these favourite videos now :) Jane Eyre is one I feel really similar about. I adore it but I have issues with it that mean it can't be a favourite unfortunately. I've never heard of Olive before but it sounds interesting. Fanny Price is definitely one of my favourite characters I've been introduced to this year. And Henry Crawford :L Wuthering Heights is always up there for me as well, the intensity of the characters is amazing :) I've read Pride and Prejudice like three times in the past year and not regretted that at all haha. Her book grows better every time as there's so many different layers to it, I love it.
Fanny Price is so amazing! I love Mansfield Park so much. I will say, on your issues with Jane Eyre - have you read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall? Thinking about those two books together, and how similar the stories are, with the genders swapped, made me find Jane Eyre much less problematic. And yes, Pride and Prejudice - so thoroughly rereadable!
I completely forgot about Olive! I want to read it for this Victober... we’ll see what I’m able to get to. I already have a tentative TBR set, but I may need to add one more.
i feel like the universe wants me to reread jane eyre!! with ur honourable mention of it being the final straw!! I think i'll reread it in victober, if i dont get snowed under with university reading! i also think i'll try pick up the warden maybe too! really enjoyed this video :) & hearing all your faves. (i also love villette, wives and daughters, pride and prejudice & mansfield park!)
I'm finally starting to catch up on these favorites videos! I'm surprised that Olive made the list, but now of course I want to read it as well as most of the books on this list. It's no surprise that Our Mutual Friend, North and South, and Pride and Prejudice made the top 3. You're also making me regret agreeing to read Little Dorrit with Petra because now I want to read Dombey and Son instead.
@@katiejlumsden Alright then. I think we're gonna stick with Little Dorrit, but Dombey and Son will be next! Or maybe Bleak House or David Copperfield. Idk
So, I don't think I'm ever going to do a serialised chapter-by-chapter readalong again, alas - to be honest, I'm not sure I love reading a book over that long amount of time! How did the Victorians do it?! I would love to do a readalong of North and South though - possibly over a month or so instead.
Great video as usual. Jane Eyre is my favorite novel. Hopefully you had a great week. And how many books are you going to this week?. Tomorrow is my day off and I will be reading madam bovary.
Loved this video! Is there anything better than listening to someone gushing about their favourites? By the way, have you ever considered reading "Bread Upon The Waters - A governess's life" by Dinah M. Craik? I got it super cheap online, and it's now on my Victober TBR. :)
I read Mansfield park 4 years ago and as a Austen lover this book was my least favorite of her, this is because of Fanny’s character I guess and one point I was remembering Mary Crawford became my favorite character in the book haha, but like I said it was 4 years ago and I was 19 so maybe I need to reread that book :) I read Wives and daughters because of you and I’m so glad I did it. I think this is my favorite book by Gaskell. ☺️ For me Jane eyre will always be the favorite for me ☺️ Thank you for sharing your comments and love for books, every time I watch you I always want to grab a English classic and read it ☺️
Thanks so much! Mansfield Park is amazing - I highly recommend rereading it. The first time I read it I didn't love it, and then I read it again and again and now I think it's absolutely incredible and I adore Fanny Price. I'm so glad you read Wives and Daughters on my recommendation - it's amazing!
so far my favorite book is north and south by elizabeth gaskell so far! but now i will start to buy george gissing's books! i so want to read every one of them. and also i have bought a few dickens as well.
I enjoyed this video and just subscribed. I am eager to read some of your suggestions, but disagree wholly and passionately, lol, with some of your choices. I hated and loathed and sort of resented Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre is my favorite classic of all time, bar none. Next is Great Gatsby, incidentally. Anyway, I am eager to watch more of your videos and check out your channel. :-)
I tried reading Villette a few years ago but was put off by all the French ( I don't speak French😅). But maybe I should pick it up again it sounds really interesting.
@Bobbie Sue Davis: There are paperback editions which have translations of French passages as footnotes or in an appendix. When I read Villette, I was glad I had an edition which included the translations.
😢 a bit sad Hardy didn’t quite make your top ten. However, I read my first Trollope this year, Can You Forgive Her. I was pleasantly surprised that Trollope’s prose was much “lighter” and easier to read than Charlotte Bronte or Thomas Hardy. So, it’s understandable that Trollope edged out Hardy. To me it seems that Hardy was influenced by Trollope & Bronte. Trollope’s character of Alice Vavosor certainly seems to be a forerunner for Hardy’s Paula Power, the indecisive protagonist in A Laodecian.(🙄 I know, obscure). Also, Paula Power was similar to Bronte’s Shirley Keeldar in her desire for employment and she was also indecisive. At least, Jude (one of my favorites) got an honorable mention.
I love Can You Forgive Her? I can definitely see Paul Power from A Laodecian in Alice - good connection! I love Thomas Hardy - I reckon Jude the Obscure is in the top 15, and if I were to list my favourite authors, Hardy's in the top 10 absolutely - I think I just love his whole body of work more than any individual book. These were so hard to pick though!
Great video! I’ve read 6 of the books you mention by now. After watching your video I think I’ll read Olive for Victober as and underrated book. I think it was published the same year than North and South, Villette and The Barchester towers.
Les Miserables and Anna Makerina might make the top 20/30, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. To be honest this reflects more what I've read than just what I think is good. The rest of my favourites week is much more varied, but I've read a huge amount of 19th century British classics and just a handful of classics from the world beyond.
"Villette " is my favorite of all the Bronte novels. After finishing it I immediately reread it. I found it to be an utterly hypnotic, deeply haunting work. A strange, dreamlike, mesmerizing book.
Frankenstein is my favorite classic of all time. I enjoyed this video and am strongly contemplating reading more Dickens now.
I highly recommend all the Dickens :)
I just read Frankenstein for the first time! Amazing! ❤️
Dickens got me into classics. Specifically, Great Expectations. Also, he never fails to make me laugh.
You make books seem so alive and exciting that every time I hear you talk about a book, it rises to near the top of my TBR list. And how wonderful to see your evolution in favorite books! I am especially excited to hear about _Olive_ (which I did not even know about before)!
Olive is amazing - I highly recommend!
Read Dombey and Son in August! Really loved it! Our Mutual Friend and Pickwick Papers remain my favourites, but i really adored this book!
I intend to read Wives and Daughters soon. It will be my first Elizabeth Gaskell! I am excited!
My favourite classic is The Brothers Karamazov.
I really must read The Brothers Karamazov. I hope you enjoy Wives and Daughters!
What a fantastic list! You are my go to on Book Tube for the 19th century.
Thanks :)
Well now I’m even more excited for Victober, if that was possible. Ahhh Wives and Daughters. I hear you talking about it and find myself thinking “My friend Molly” 😂 I’m so looking forward to reading Olive!
I do love a Katie countdown.
I really, really think you'll love Olive. And yes, I certainly feel like the characters in Wives and Daughters are real people.
I greatly enjoyed this video and the books you name are wonderful, at least the ones I have read🤭 I love your channel, the passion and the arguments with which you express yourself about your readings, especially the classics📖 It seems to me that our tastes are very similar so I'm glad I found your channel😍 PS: I adore Jane Austen and Charles Dickens very strongly💖
You have wonderful taste in books! I'm so excited to read Wuthering Heights for Victober. I have tried a few times, but not succeeded, but I'm determined this time. I love Wives and Daughters and North and South with all my heart. Gaskell and Austen are two of my favourite authors! I just love all their works so much.
Wuthering Heights is amazing, but definitely not for everyone. I hope you can enjoy it! And Gaskell and Austen - yes, so thoroughly amazing :)
I’ve read all of these except Olive - off to look that up now. My favourite has to be Jane Eyre so I’m glad you gave it an honourable mention! ☺️ Great start to the lists of favourites 👍
If you love Jane Eyre, I really think you'll like Olive too :)
I’m so glad we have these videos to look forward to this week! Love your enthusiasm for classics!
My favorite classic is Pride and Prejudice. But Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are also on my list.
I also love Mansfield Park and North and South. I think it would be hard for me to make a list of 10 because I would want to include all of Austen’s works and that would take up most of the list.
I looking forward to reading some more Dickens and Gaskell in Victober!
Very good choices! And yes, Gaskell and Dickens - I highly recommend reading more :)
Hard Times by Charles Dickens is my favorite classic. I read Pride and Prejudice but didn’t love it as much as everybody else. And I’m currently reading Jane Eyre and I think it will become a favorite 😉
Hard Times is a great one! I hope you enjoy the rest of Jane Eyre :)
Books and Things me too 😄
Never heard of Hard Times.
Reading Little Doritt and those were hard times as in The Old Curiosity Shop.
😊
Picking a favourite classic is a bit like picking a favourite child, very hard to do. I was given a bunch of abridged Readers digest classics as a child, colourful covers, top and tail gold edging. Seemed to sit on my bookshelf for ages (probably only a few weeks) until I started dipping into them. Jane Eyre, P&P, Robinson Crusoe, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Treasure Island, The Good Earth, Tom Sawyer, Oliver Twist and David Copperfield, Two Years before the Mast, stories of Marie Curie, Helen Keller, Marco Polo and many others all still have a fond place in my heart and I've still kept those books into middle-age. Since read a few of them in their entirety. Frankenstein is a marvel of a book that I've read as an adult and it's a firm favourite. As is Great Expectations. Keep meaning to read The Russian Classic but have't got there yet.
It's certainly very hard! You're got some great choices there though :)
I read Villette last year because of your recommendation, and fell in love with it.
I must read Olive for Victober.
And thank you for giving praise to Mansfield Park. It’s my favorite Austen.
I absolutely adore Mansfield Park. I highly, highly recommend Olive too :)
I love how much you love these books. :) My absolute favorite made it in to your Top Ten: Wuthering Heights. :)
Wuthering Heights is just so amazing :)
Oh I love that Jane Eyre got an honourable mention. I love it so much. This is such a fantastic list and has got me even more excited for Victober! 😀📚
It's amazing!
Villette has to be my favourite book. ❤❤❤
Yes, justice for Fanny! :) I love so many of these, Wuthering Heights & North and South, oh my heart yes, so amazing...
I love this video, I need to get Olive, actually never heard of this book! :O
I really recommend Olive - it's very underrated and very incredible. And yes, Mansfield Park, Villette, Wuthering Heights, North and South - all so amazing . . .
Okay I could hear you talk about your favourites for hours - your enthusiasm about Mansfield Park (which I really disliked) makes me want to give it another chance. I hadn't heard of Olive before but it sounds like a fascinating novel. I definitely want to read Our Mutual Friend.
Ooo you must! I didn't love Mansfield Park on my first reading, so I definitely recommend a reread or two.
I'm looking forward to finally reading North and South. The only Gaskell I've read is Cranford and I am fond of her prose. Our Mutual Friend is amazing - I listened to the audiobook when we were moving my brother from Macclesfield to Northumberland (an 8 hour round trip) and that book takes you through every single emotion it is possible to feel. Glad to hear more about your favourite classics. :D
I really hope you like North and South. It is so, so good. And I really need to listen to Our Mutual Friend. I've read it so many times but never listened to an audiobook!
Great list, I never tire of hearing your love of classics! My favorites (in no particular order) include Jane Eyre, Emma, Howards End (a new favorite since my reread last year), The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas (an absolute favorite since my teens), The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton, Bleak House and Wives and Daughters.
I really need to read some Alexandre Dumas and some more Edith Wharton. I highly approve your other choices :)
Love this and so many books you talk about I love and more I now have to read. Wuthering heights is my favourite classic and one of my favourite books ever 😊
It is such an incredible book!
I’m so glad I found your channel. You just gave me my new reading list!
Thanks :)
Every time I read Pride and Prejudice, I notice new things about the novel. It might be a new connection between events, or it might be a new feeling or focus. This surprises me since the book is a quick read. Perhaps I should re-read more books.
Pride and Prejudice is such an amazing novel!
The last novel I read was 17 years ago. Takes so much time to read these books, and I have so much work.
I'm reading Our Mutual Friend now.
One genre I've always loved is lost or wounded out in the wilderness books (I'm avid backpacker) (e.g. Call of the Wild). There's an emotional but fairly short episode where that happens in Wuthering Heights (I've never seen it included in the movie adaptations).
Thanks for recommending Dombey & Son!
Oooohhh I love me some videos about classics 😁💕💕💕 especially Victorian classics. Can never get enough of them
Thanks :) :)
I really need to read some Trollope! I also am extremely interested in Olive, which I’ll probably try to find today. I’m going to reread Vilette soon. I read it once years ago and didn’t enjoy it. My favorites of all time are:
Wuthering Heights/Jane Eyre
Sense and Sensibility
P & P
The Three Musketeers
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo are wonderful, wonderful books, I'm so glad to see some Alexandre Dumas here :)
Sarah Elbisser Yes! Which one I like best depends on what day you ask me. I just love both so much, and they’re so different. They deserve a lot more love than they get.
Good choices! I really really need to read The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo! I feel like once I read The Hunchback of Notre Dame this year, The Count of Monte Cristo may be my must-read translated classic for next year. I hear so many, many great things.
OLIVE is hugely overwrought and the baroque descriptions of character and landscape are wearying, but it is compelling and highly recommended. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
I also love Our Mutual Friend, though my favorite Dickens book is Bleak House, which usually gets me some weird looks when I tell people that, haha. But it's just so..........Dickensian to me! The setting, the characters, the names...I just adore it. Might have to reread it at some point.
Ah, Bleak House is so amazing too! That's one of my favourite Dickens too :)
You persuaded me to read Our Mutual Friend with this and your other videos about book. I start it tonight!
Hope you like it :D
I am so much in love with Mr. Darcy 😍
He's a great character!
You seriously make me want to read alllll of the classics! I used to watch the movie adaptations on PBS and would fall in love with the dialogue, the characters and stories. Really great review:-)
Thanks so much :)
Such a wonderful list! There are *so* many Classics that I have yet to read, but some of my favorites (not including Agatha Christie) are: Rebecca, Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, A Christmas Carol, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Mansfield Park and Pride and Prejudice.
Also very good choices! I feel like A Christmas Carol and Rebecca would probably make my top 20/30 - both are amazing!
I usually skip the comments about the books in videos of that kind, or just read down below, but I really enjoy hearing you talk about the books and your thoughts on them. >
Thanks!
I just read Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend back-to-back. No contest, I'm afraid, Bleak House is a supreme work of art, while Our Mutual Friend is so poorly organized and full of absurd coincidences: Betty Higden dying in Lizzie Hexham's arms being the most ludicrous. Great characters and dialogue, though, particularly the Wilfer family.
Not sure of my number 1, but Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White, would be on my list, it's one of the most exciting books I've read. You never seem to read adventure stories, but I would include one, She by H Rider Haggard or Treasure Island.
Personally I think Our Mutual Friend is a stronger book than Bleak House. I love Bleak House - it would make the top 20! - but it doesn't have quite the same emotional resonance for me, and I find the female characters in Our Mutual Friend especially strong. I do enjoy Wilkie Collins - I must reread The Woman in White. I also have read Treasure Island - but I have to admit I found it very boring! Each to their own.
@@katiejlumsden Happy to disagree. "Boring" = no weddings. ;) Idea for a Top 10 for you, your Top 10 books without a wedding.
@@katiejlumsden Treasure Island was my gateway into the classics and it still remains a top ten choice as is Dickens’ Pickwick Papers. Loaded with eccentric characters.
Love your You Tube presentation. Keep up the good work. (Been meaning to read Jane Austin for a long time. You’ve convinced me I should delay no longer :)
North and South is probably my favorite Victorian novel…it’s just fantastic…! I couldn’t really get into Villette when I tried it years ago but I’m starting it again tonight haha
Great list, I love most of these so much too 😊
Oh but Mansfield Park, I still shudder to think of that as two afternoons/way-too-late nights of my life that I’ll never get back, I hated it and it’s unusual for me to hate any Victorian literature! But I’m glad someone likes it 😆
I love this list! You make me look so forward to the books on this list that are still on my TBR :D. Ok, I have to pick 12 but I THINK my list/order from least favorite to most is-12. A Room With a View by EM Forster, 11.Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, 10. Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte 9.And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, 8..Persuasion by Jane Austen 7.Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (but really those last 2 are tied), 6. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, 5.Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, 4. Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope 3.Daniel Deronda by George Eliot (and really those last 3 are all tied again), 2.Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, 1. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (again 1 and 2 are tied lol so really I have top 8 with a lot of ties). Cheers to you for making a list because this is difficult! Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy and Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell are right outside of my list and I had to make the rule not to include plays or William Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde would have taken some spots too. Awesome video Katie! Congrats on 10k, you deserve every one :D.
A very good list! I didn't realise Daniel Deronda was quite so high up, though I knew you loved it. Super interesting. I feel like you need to make a video of this!
@@katiejlumsden truth be told I didn't know it was that high up until I made the list either! But FFMC and Doctor Thorne are definitely tied with it😀. Ooo I'd love to make a video of it! It will be awhile before I film anything new because our furniture is finally back in the house so we are unpacking the house at the moment but I do have a few videos on my phone camera that I need to upload 😀.
I am so silly because I forgot David Copperfield! HOW COULD I FORGET DAVID COPPERFIELD?! Ok 13 then lol. I think it would go between Northanger Abbey and FFMC but it's tied with FFMC, Doctor Thorne, and DD 😀❤️📘
19th century books babyyy💛💛💛💗
They're the best!
Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favorite novels, but I haven’t read Villette yet. I should remedy that soon!
I really do recommend it.
@@katiejlumsden I'll add it to my Victober reading list!
My favorite classic is The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, which is my all-time favorite book!
I'm catching up on your Favorites Week videos and thinking about doing a similar thing because this year has not been a good reading year for me but it's a way to still incorporate bookish stuff in my content.
I must read that one sometime.
Same here, Jane Eyre was the novel that introduced me to victorian literature. As Flaubert said "Mme Bovary, c'est moi !" (Mrs Bovary is me), I would say Jane Eyre is me - mostly. That book will always have the best place in my heart, as much as I'll always love the ones you quote here with all my heart :)
Yes, absolutely! I feel like that about Jane Eyre a lot too - it's such a wonderful book.
Jane Eyre is my favourite book, and was also my gateway book to the Victorian era. So much so that I have a Jane Eyre inspired tattoo!
Such a great book :)
Loved these picks💛 I was playing a game in my head to see if I could guess which ones you would say . I didn't get the order right but I think picked quite a few 😉💙 I have a lot of these on my list already but I can't wait to get to the ones I haven't read 💛
Thanks Charlie :) I feel like many of these are a bit predictable XD
@@katiejlumsden you aren't predictable .... I loved it ❤️
Another reminder for me to read Olive. Victober will be the spur 😊.
Olive really is so, so fantastic!
All these novels are also favourites of mine, except The small house at Alington, which I haven't read (but I hope that it will also turn out to be a favourite). I recently read Olive and I loved it a lot, it's amazing! I love all the books by Charlote Brontë and I agree: Villette is the best!
I highly recommend Shall House at Allington, though do make sure you read the rest of the Barsetshire Chronicles first :) Villette is just so amazing!
I have only just picked up Villette and am most pumped to read it! :)
I hope you like it!
@@katiejlumsden I have just finished North and South because of your recommendation and I LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOVED IT!!! Loved it!!!!!! Thank you for your enthusiasm for it and your appropriate, glowing praise! It is one of my favorites now by far!
Catching up on all these favourite videos now :)
Jane Eyre is one I feel really similar about. I adore it but I have issues with it that mean it can't be a favourite unfortunately. I've never heard of Olive before but it sounds interesting.
Fanny Price is definitely one of my favourite characters I've been introduced to this year. And Henry Crawford :L
Wuthering Heights is always up there for me as well, the intensity of the characters is amazing :)
I've read Pride and Prejudice like three times in the past year and not regretted that at all haha. Her book grows better every time as there's so many different layers to it, I love it.
Fanny Price is so amazing! I love Mansfield Park so much. I will say, on your issues with Jane Eyre - have you read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall? Thinking about those two books together, and how similar the stories are, with the genders swapped, made me find Jane Eyre much less problematic. And yes, Pride and Prejudice - so thoroughly rereadable!
Your videos always make me think I need to read some Trollope, but there are so many!
He's fantastic! I recommend Doctor Wortle's School and The Way We Live Now as good places to start.
thank you books and things😊
I completely forgot about Olive! I want to read it for this Victober... we’ll see what I’m able to get to. I already have a tentative TBR set, but I may need to add one more.
I really do recommend it - it's amazing!
Thank you for introducing me to Our Mutual Friend. Such a great book!!! But Jane Eyre only gets an honorable mention?
To be fair, I might shift it up a bit now . . .
i feel like the universe wants me to reread jane eyre!! with ur honourable mention of it being the final straw!! I think i'll reread it in victober, if i dont get snowed under with university reading! i also think i'll try pick up the warden maybe too! really enjoyed this video :) & hearing all your faves. (i also love villette, wives and daughters, pride and prejudice & mansfield park!)
Jane Eyre is a lovely one to reread :) I highly recommend the Barsetshire Chronicles too.
I'm finally starting to catch up on these favorites videos! I'm surprised that Olive made the list, but now of course I want to read it as well as most of the books on this list. It's no surprise that Our Mutual Friend, North and South, and Pride and Prejudice made the top 3. You're also making me regret agreeing to read Little Dorrit with Petra because now I want to read Dombey and Son instead.
Little Dorrit is pretty amazing too! It's like number 12 or 13 in my favourite classics ever :)
@@katiejlumsden Alright then. I think we're gonna stick with Little Dorrit, but Dombey and Son will be next! Or maybe Bleak House or David Copperfield. Idk
I've to try North & South.
Would you consider doing a read along of North and South like you did of Our Mutual Friend and Bleak House??
So, I don't think I'm ever going to do a serialised chapter-by-chapter readalong again, alas - to be honest, I'm not sure I love reading a book over that long amount of time! How did the Victorians do it?! I would love to do a readalong of North and South though - possibly over a month or so instead.
Olive sounds inviting. I am adding this to my victober TBR list. Didn't know Jane Austen also falls under Victorian literature.
she's Georgian. she said though these would all be 19th century works, not Victorian
Jane Austen is not Victorian - she died 20 years before Victoria came to the throne. Her two novels are the only non-Victorian books in this list.
love this video, what a great list! ^^
Thanks :)
What, no George Eliot? 😉 I think Mansfield Park is often very underrated- I love it as well.
I know, right, what a surprise! :D
Looooove your favorites.
Thanks :)
I think I shall Read Olive for Victober - just ordered it from the Library :)
I hope you like it!
I hope you like it!
Great video as usual. Jane Eyre is my favorite novel. Hopefully you had a great week. And how many books are you going to this week?. Tomorrow is my day off and I will be reading madam bovary.
I guess, it's 7 videos of 10 favourites, but that includes several series . . . A lot of books!
Loved this video! Is there anything better than listening to someone gushing about their favourites? By the way, have you ever considered reading "Bread Upon The Waters - A governess's life" by Dinah M. Craik? I got it super cheap online, and it's now on my Victober TBR. :)
Thanks! I must add it to my list. I've only read Olive by Dinah Mullock Craik and really, really need to read more by her.
I like your top...so pretty 😋❤
Mansfield park is the bees knees. I don't get why ppl don't like Fanny, she's my second favorite after Lizzie 😘
Yes, Fanny is amazing!!
The Brontes, Dickens, Austin, Shakespeare, Hard to top the Britts! Love the Russians too.
I read Mansfield park 4 years ago and as a Austen lover this book was my least favorite of her, this is because of Fanny’s character I guess and one point I was remembering Mary Crawford became my favorite character in the book haha, but like I said it was 4 years ago and I was 19 so maybe I need to reread that book :)
I read Wives and daughters because of you and I’m so glad I did it. I think this is my favorite book by Gaskell. ☺️
For me Jane eyre will always be the favorite for me ☺️
Thank you for sharing your comments and love for books, every time I watch you I always want to grab a English classic and read it ☺️
Thanks so much! Mansfield Park is amazing - I highly recommend rereading it. The first time I read it I didn't love it, and then I read it again and again and now I think it's absolutely incredible and I adore Fanny Price. I'm so glad you read Wives and Daughters on my recommendation - it's amazing!
Books and Things I will reread Mansfield park ☺️ and yes your recommendations always work! Lots of love 🌸
so far my favorite book is north and south by elizabeth gaskell so far! but now i will start to buy george gissing's books! i so want to read every one of them. and also i have bought a few dickens as well.
I think if you enjoy Gaskell, you'll find Gissing interesting too.
I missed one somehow!!
I want to ask if all Dickens books are similar or are they very different from book to book. I mean in the style and the way characters are presented?
Let me put that in my Q&A :)
I enjoyed this video and just subscribed. I am eager to read some of your suggestions, but disagree wholly and passionately, lol, with some of your choices. I hated and loathed and sort of resented Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre is my favorite classic of all time, bar none. Next is Great Gatsby, incidentally. Anyway, I am eager to watch more of your videos and check out your channel. :-)
Thanks! I adore Wuthering Heights but I do know it's not for everyone! Great Gatsby is amazing too :)
@@katiejlumsden :-) I read it years ago and turned up my nose at it....perhaps I shall one day give it another try.
I tried reading Villette a few years ago but was put off by all the French ( I don't speak French😅). But maybe I should pick it up again it sounds really interesting.
@Bobbie Sue Davis: There are paperback editions which have translations of French passages as footnotes or in an appendix. When I read Villette, I was glad I had an edition which included the translations.
Many editions do have translations. I just read it armed with google translate on my phone!
😢 a bit sad Hardy didn’t quite make your top ten. However, I read my first Trollope this year, Can You Forgive Her. I was pleasantly surprised that Trollope’s prose was much “lighter” and easier to read than Charlotte Bronte or Thomas Hardy. So, it’s understandable that Trollope edged out Hardy. To me it seems that Hardy was influenced by Trollope & Bronte. Trollope’s character of Alice Vavosor certainly seems to be a forerunner for Hardy’s Paula Power, the indecisive protagonist in A Laodecian.(🙄 I know, obscure). Also, Paula Power was similar to Bronte’s Shirley Keeldar in her desire for employment and she was also indecisive.
At least, Jude (one of my favorites) got an honorable mention.
I love Can You Forgive Her? I can definitely see Paul Power from A Laodecian in Alice - good connection! I love Thomas Hardy - I reckon Jude the Obscure is in the top 15, and if I were to list my favourite authors, Hardy's in the top 10 absolutely - I think I just love his whole body of work more than any individual book. These were so hard to pick though!
Great video! I’ve read 6 of the books you mention by now.
After watching your video I think I’ll read Olive for Victober as and underrated book. I think it was published the same year than North and South, Villette and The Barchester towers.
Thanks :) I really do recommend Olive - it's so, so amazing!
Love you
Have you ever read Machado de Assis' books?
I haven't I'm afraid.
OMF 1st. No surprise. Which VicLit is last?
Hmmm probably The Mill on the Floss? Possibly my least favourite book ever.
@@katiejlumsden Silly novels by lady novelists may be better than a famed Eliot novel. If this proves true for you, O the irony.
💞💞💞
1. P&P. 2. Jane E. 3. Vanity Fair. Would not put Glaskell in my top 10.
No other countries/languages came even close? Very interesting, nonetheless.
Les Miserables and Anna Makerina might make the top 20/30, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. To be honest this reflects more what I've read than just what I think is good. The rest of my favourites week is much more varied, but I've read a huge amount of 19th century British classics and just a handful of classics from the world beyond.
@@katiejlumsden Fair enough. Congrats on your great work.
I enjoyed Small House at Allington a lot but found the ending a bit disappointing. I can't like Jane Eyre, the book annoys me.
Oh, I ADORE the ending of The Small House at Allington - one of the reasons I love it so much!
you should try to learn a foreign language