February 2023 Classics Cat

This month you are to read a classic published before 1900. That is almost everything! There is always a debate on what a classic is. I will share with you the definition of a classic from the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (1979): a work that has withstood the test of time (at least 50 years old), a work for all ages and all peoples. You can use your definition of classic to choose your read, just make sure it was published before 1900. Below are some possibilities:



Don't forget to update the wiki: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/ClassicsCAT_2023

What are you doing to read?

I am hoping to read two classics next month - The Awakening (1899) by Kate Chopin and Vathek (1786) by William Beckford.

I've got 5 Russian reads I want to complete this year. Will go with one of them, probably Oblomov Ivan Goncharov

I want to read The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore

It's too early to decide, I've got so many on the TBR!

>4 Robertgreaves: Whoops The Home and the World is later than I thought. I may go with Romola by George Eliot

>6 Robertgreaves: I've read a lot of Eliot. Romola is the least-like Eliot that I've read! Very dense prose--the "height" of Victorian style writing.

I am leaning towards a Jane Austen selection, but need to peruse my shelves.

So many choices, so I can't decide just yet!

darn, I have cheri sitting on my tbr shelf for ages, but she wrote it in 1920. I coulld pick an earlier one, but Ive read the Claudine books, and my mothers house

I'm thinking of The Lifted Veil by George Elliot.

No touchstones. Fixed.

My possibilities:

Evelina, Fanny Burney (1778)
The House of Seven Gables, Hawthorne (1851)
The Doctor's Wife, Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1864)
Ralph the Heir, Anthony Trollope (1871)
Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy (1874) (re-read)
Washington Square, Henry James (1881)
At Fault, Kate Chopin (1890)
A Pair of Silk Stockings and other stories, Kate Chopin (1894 & 1897)

I hope to get to at least 2 or 3 of these. The last 2 Chopin selections are both short, so should be manageable.

>11 pamelad: Oooooh. I hadn't heard of that one. Wishlisted.

>11 pamelad: >13 Robertgreaves: I read that one last year and enjoyed it!

>11 pamelad:
>13 Robertgreaves:
>14 MissBrangwen:

I also read this last year and liked it!

I am behind on my Dickens readalong group, so have Oliver Twist (published as a book in 1838) and The Pickwick Papers (published in 1836) to catch up on. Plus any number of other classics to choose from - it is difficult to decide!

I decided on some of Jane Austen's Juvenilia which I have combined with Sanditon in a lovely Everyman's Library edition. I have read all the other Austen works but not her Juvenilia.

I put Pride and Prejudice on the February pile. It would be a re-read but I have a lovely hardcover edition and was looking forward to some time with Jane. However, the RandomCAT is to read a book related to second/two and I decided to read Kate Chopin's second novel The Awakening that has been on the shelf for a long time. So, I think I'm going to read her first novel as well: At Fault. Just grabbed a copy from Project Gutenberg that is in the updated Kindle format.

>18 witchyrichy: You can still read Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's second published novel

>11 pamelad:, >13 Robertgreaves:. Eliot's "The Lifted Veil" is short. It is available via Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2165/2165-h/2165-h.htm
approximately 32 pages of text plus another 7 pages or so talking about licensing, etc.

I read it in an adult education class a number of years ago.

>20 sallylou61: I had planned on reading Ivanhoe for the January Adventure Classics but I didn't manage to fit it in. I am therefore going to make it my pre-1900 classic

>20 sallylou61: Thank you. At 32 pages I'll have space for another. Thinking of Scenes of Clerical Life.

>22 pamelad: That was the first George Eliot I read. I really enjoyed it.

>22 pamelad: My edition combines two shorter Eliot works: The Lifted Veil and Brother Jacob. Together they're about 90 pages. "Brother Jacob" is light-hearted and reads a bit like a fable.

I read selections from Juvenilia by Jane Austen.

I hope to complete The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West.

We are reviving our real-world book group and starting with Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot.

>27 pamelad: Glad you are able to do that. The one I belonged to collapsed during Covid and there aren't really enough remaining that want to start it up again!

>28 Tess_W: Ours is a select little group because we've also lost a few people, but one of our members is so very keen to revive it that we would have felt terrible if we hadn't tried.

>27 pamelad: >28 Tess_W: My book club is still meeting by Zoom. Only two of us, out of nine, are ready to meet in person.

I'm thinking time for another Dickens. So I've got Oliver Twist out on audiobook.

>29 pamelad: The only other one interested at this time is one of my BFF's, who I see regularly anyway!

I have completed my read of Vathek by William Beckford. I was very happy that this was such a short book as it was extremely over-the-top. It is a dark morality tale that isn't hesitant about showing the lavish excesses that man can get up to!

>19 Robertgreaves: Thanks for pointing that out...I checked out a few second novel lists but don't remember seeing Austin. I have put her back on the pile.

I read Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Even better than I remember. I loved the Scots dialect and the fabulous characters, especially evil uncle Ebenezer. The friendship between a Whig and a Jacobite was heartening. A wonderful rollicking adventure steeped in Scottish history.

I re-read, for the umpteenth time, my favorite novel forever, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

>36 Tess_W: I love Wuthering Heights.

Starting The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)

COMPLETED Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

I have now finished The Awakening by Kate Chopin, an American classic and an example of feminist writing. I didn't love the book, but it was well done.

I just realized that Oliver Twist, which I've read this month, fits in this category.

I read Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain. This is one of his shorter novels, and was first published in 1894 (later than many of his most famous novels).

March is up!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/348659

I've been participating in a chapter-a-day reading of Middlemarch on Litsy, so that is my February ClassicsCAT selection, though I won't be finishing it until late in March.

I'm reading/listening to Ivanhoe, narrated by Davie Rintoul, who is doing a great job with it. Originally published in 1819.

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Published 1882

I read The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James, which was first published in 1896. It is only 56 pages in the Penguin Little Black Classics edition, but well worth the read in my opinion.

My classics this month were all from the 19th century:

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass (1845); memoir; re-read for Black History month
Roughing It In the Bush, Susanna Moodie, (1852); Canadian classic memoir
Framley Parsonage, Anthony Trollope (1861); re-read on audiobook
The Lady of Launay, Anthony Trollope (1878); novella
Two Heroines of Plumplington, Anthony Trollope (1882); novella

This goes waaaaay back: orginally written in 1665 the blazing world and other writings this actually is a reread, and already seeing interesting things I missed. Will be hard to rate, but I will post a review in my thread soon

Okay, I managed to read a book for this after all: The evil genius by Wilkie Collins, in which a woman gets a divorce from her straying husband. Not very coherent, he goes off in too many directions, misleading the reader into thinking this will be an adventure. Possibly that's why it is sometimes called "a domestic story".

Finished Oliver Twist.

I finished and enjoyed Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac for this month.

I have finished Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot.

It took me well past February, but I finally did finish Middlemarch. I really enjoyed it and now I'm wondering which film/TV adaptation I should watch.

>54 mathgirl40: I loved the one with Rufus Sewell as Will Lawson. Juliet Aubrey was great.

>55 MissWatson: Thanks for the recommendation!

>56 mathgirl40: That's Will Ladislaw, of course. I just re-watched it myself and was surprised to find I had forgotten about Doctor Lydgate...

>56 mathgirl40: >57 MissWatson: I have owned that one on DVD for years but still haven't watched it. I must do so!

>58 MissBrangwen: I've got quite a few unwatched DVDs on my shelves, too. Last night I took down Far from the Madding Crowd, the Carey Mulligan version, and it was such a pleasure! Must read the book soonish...

>57 MissWatson: Thanks again for the recommendation of the 1994 BBC adaptation of Middlemarch. I was able to find it at my local library and finished watching it on the weekend. I loved the adaptation! My husband did too, though he had not read the novel.

>60 mathgirl40: I'm glad you enjoyed it!