888: Classic book in fantasy genre?

Okay, I'm doing the 888 reading thing, and one of my categories is "classics." My English teacher mother used to make out classics summer reading lists for me in addition to the ones from school. In college, I double-majored in English and philosophy, I have an MA in English (American lit), and I have a partial PhD (read: don't wanna teach).

Therefore, I thought filling out a classics list would be easy, but it's not. A lot of things I come up with are re-reads or things I've read criticism about and KNOW I don't want to read.

I was thinking that maybe you guys could come up with a fantasy-type classic (not Tolkien, done all that) for me to add to my list-- I'm deficient there. American lit and Brit lit as well as a good amount of Can lit are covered. I'd like to try something NEW-- and I'm asking you guys because I'd like it to be GOOD.

So, ideas? Suggestions? Must-reads? My ears are (virtually) open.

How old does a work have to be, exactly, to be called a classic?

I adore Tigana, but I suspect it hasn't been around long enough.

I'm not too picky about length of time-- 20th century is fine with me. Established, literary criticism, general acclaim of community. 1970s? So much of my work was modern that I take a broad view of "classic," much to the consternation of the Victorian lit people and such. But I'm also filling the category of "authors I haven't read anything by before," so I'll make a note of that, too.

I too wonder how old a book have to be to count.

My 5 cents is on The Lions of Al-Rassan, or the duo Sailing to Sarantium & Lord of Emperors.
All same author as Tigana above.

And I think that as fantasy goes the original three Earthsea novels is a must-read.

What is in your definitely out list? Have you read The Faerie Queen by Spencer? That was one of my first fantasy reads and I truly enjoyed it.

#3 - OK, if it's the 70's then the Earthsea books qualify, but not anything written by Guy Gavriel Kay.

Maybe Guy Gavriel Kay goes on the author-unread list, what with the big following.

And I LOVE The Faerie Queene! It's nice to see someone who doesn't think I'm crazy for adoring it! I swear, just six lines of it are worth an hour's reading time!

I don't know if it will actually help, but this thread talks about the SF/F books in 1001 Books to Read before you die.

888... The Number of the East!

Seriously, in Asia it's a lucky number.

George RR Martin is one of my absolute faves. Check out:

Dying of the Light
Windhaven
Fevre Dream
The Armageddon Rag
Dead Man's Hand

and the series A Song of Ice and Fire, including,
A Game of Thrones
A Clash of Kings
A Storm of Swords
A Dance with Dragons

The Gormenghast trilogy, maybe?

Funny you should mention Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy... I actually studied that, as well as Tolkien and the Inklings (Charles Williams, C.S.Lewis, etc.) as part of the 3rd Year B.A. English Literature course at Edinburgh University in the '70's... so I'd guess it should be acceptable as a modern literary fantasy.

For something even more contemporary, I'd second the Guy Gavriel Kay books, particularly Tigana, Song for Arbonne and Lions of Al-Rassan

I checked some other courses and they list:
Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass
Stephen R. Donaldson, Lord Foul's Bane
Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea (etc.)
Gene Wolfe, The Shadow of the Torturer
Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time
J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (etc.)
Neil Gaiman
Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass
George MacDonald
Michael Moorcock
Tim Powers

I would echo all the positive comments on Guy Gavriel Kaye and Ursula LeGuin. I might also recommend works such as The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia McKillip as well as The Riddle-Master of Hed by the same author. Exquisitely done.

I would also recommend Beauty: A Re-telling of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley. Far ahead of Disney's version with certain allusions to T.H. White's The Sword in the Stone

Note: I fixed the touchstones previously not working. One is still wonky.

E. R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros is generally considered an early classic of fantasy. Are you looking at children's fantasies? If so I would recommend several by George MacDonald: At the Back of the North Wind, The Princess and the Goblin, etc. I suspect most would call the initial Earthsea books, which have already been mentioned, classics, and probably Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia.

I'd nominate The Mabinogion, a foundational work in Welsh literature and a significant entry in world literature.

For a contemporary adaptation, you can't go wrong with the four novels that Evangeline Walton created from the fragments of the classic text -- The Island of the Mighty, The Children of Llyr, The Song of Rhiannon and Prince of Annwn. All four novels were published in a single volume as The Mabinogion Tetralogy.

Once you're hooked (obviously I am) you won't be happy until you've see the recent film version Y Mabinogi (sometimes called in English Otherworld). After you've seen it, you still won't be happy. But at least you'll have seen a valiant attempt

I know the Mabinogian, Lewis in all his various forms (my cat is Alice, in fact), some children's fantasy, Ursula LeGuin, for some reason didn't like The Once and Future King (I think that makes me weird-- but Malory's Arthur is an all-time favorite; Steinbeck's Arthurian leaves me lukewarm-- but those legends are overall favorites), L'Engle (does anyone else here think Meg gets the short end of the stick toward the end? It's been awhile since I read that series, but I remember thinking she got shafted). I didn't know about all the Mabinogian "spinoffs!"

Thank you for ALL the suggestions. The classics list might get renamed as a fantasy classics list, because it was limping along in its current form as stuff to re-read. I can see more than 8 things here that interest me! (and now stuff that I want to re-read, too)

I haven't read The Golden Compass, and I should, because I'm a librarian, and people keep telling me it's satanic (siiiiiiigh . . . replays of Harry Potter, years ago-- I kept asking people what part of the book-- this would be the first one-- troubled them so much, since I'd read it and hadn't felt moved to sacrifice a goat or start riding a broom or anything, and they ALWAYS ALWAYS answered, "Well, I haven't read it, but . . ."). However, the library doesn't HAVE it (which is probably why I never found it to read), probably because the children's librarian thinks it's a troublemaker-- someone had to donate the first Harry Potter book to get it into the library-- so it look like I'll be buying that one!

PS: I ILL'ed the 1001 Books to Read and hope to have it to look over soon!

#16 - Steinbeck's Arthurian???!!!!

Have I missed something? John Steinbeck actually wrote some Arthurian work(s)?

John Steinbeck died before he completed his retelling of the Morte d'Arthur. It was published back in the '80's, I think. It has wonderful moments of humor. I need to check the actual title.

Got it! It's called The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

Are we including Science Fiction? How about Jules Verne, Ray Bradbury, The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison, Lilith by George MacDonald, or The Water of the Wondrous Isles by William Morris?

What about Roger Zelazny's Amber series? I know he's considered a science fiction writer but I've always considered his Amber series more fantasy or fantastic, than science fiction.

The tag weighting on The Great Book of Amber also shows this?

I consider it a classic - not of the the tolkien/epic fantasy genre but the 'Alice' type of fantasy (fantastic world/environment beyond what we consider our 'real' world).

The dark is rising series...

Great idea for a category! I am just trying ot decide on my categories for the 888 challenge, and I had excluded Classics, because I wouldn't want to try reading 8 works along the lines of Crime and Punishment. But since I've been collecting 'classic' fantasy, without ever getting around to reading them, I could easily make classic fantasy a challenge. I'm thinking along the lines of
Lord Dunsany The King of Elflands Daughter, The Charwomans Shadow
William Morris The Well at The Worlds End, The Wood Beyond the World
I'll second Gene Wolfes Book of the New Sun series. They are great. I don't know how old Robert Holdstocks Mythago Wood series is, but it is bound to become a classic.
Early Darkover by Marion Zimmer Bradley could perhaps be considered classic. Very light reading.
Obviously there is Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker etc. But they are probably already covered in the general classics program I assume. They feature prominently on the 1001 book list at least.

*has a copy of Steinbeck's Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights on her BookMooch inventory, just waiting for someone to mooch it...*

:-P

I second the Gormenghast recommendation — splendidly atmospheric, dark fantasy.

I didn't care for Mythago Wood. It's now a series?

# 23 I think Robert Holdstocks writing in general (or at least what I've read of him) is very dense, and perhaps an acquired taste.
I don't know if you would call the Mythago cycle a series proper, but the books are set in the same universe, and many of the stories have recurring characters. It consists of:
Mythago Wood
Lavondyss
The Bone Forest short stories
The Hollowing
Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn

We read The Dark Is Rising series in a class in Arthurian literature in college, at the end of the term, when exams were here-- but we discussed it and analyzed it just as seriously as we had the other texts. I thought it was a pretty interesting thing to do and a pretty dignified way to treat the series.

I really want that 1001 Books book (Books book?) now.