The English Novel: 2023 Reading List

If you're not familiar, I'm probably one of the biggest fans of Jane Austen you’ll ever meet. This spring, I'll be taking a course on her work during my final semester at the College of William & Mary, the second oldest university in the United States. It's a great place to study historical literature and steps away from Colonial Williamsburg's Living History Museum, which features carriage-driving interpreters who reenact life in the 1770s, the same decade Austen was born in.

I have created a reading list for 2023 that focuses on the early English novel, Jane Austen and her influences, and the growth of the English novel in the 19th century.

This list, which is 190 books long, will provide me with a comprehensive education in pre-20th century English literature and help me better contextualize and analyze Austen's work. It also includes more works by woman authors than traditionally suggested as part of the “Western Canon” of literary classics and includes less-popular books of personal interest to me from the body of works of these authors.

Admittedly, I don't plan on actually reading all 190 books this year (alas— maybe by 2025?) but I have already read a dozen of them and there are also a few that I started but couldn't get more than 100 pages into which I have no plans to ever finish. I have a personal rule of not forcing myself to finish a book if I'm not enjoying it. In this case—I have 189 other books to choose from, so why waste time on one that isn't riveting beyond page 100?

If you’d like to read along or take a peek at my plans…

The List (chronologically by an author’s first book of note):

—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)—

•The Canterbury Tales (1387-1400)

—John Bunyan (1628-1688)—

•The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678)

“arguably first English novel”

—Aphra Behn (1640-1689)—

•Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684)

“arguably first English novel”

—Daniel Defoe (1660-1731)—

•Robinson Crusoe (1719)

•Moll Flanders (1722)

—Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)—

•Gulliver’s Travels (1726, amended 1735)

—Samuel Richardson (1689-1761)—

•Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740)

•Clarissa (1747)

—Tobias Smollett (1721-1771)—

•The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748)

•The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751)

•The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker (1771)

—Henry Fielding (1707-1754)—

•Shamela (1741)

•Tom Jones (1749)

—Laurence Sterne (1713-1768)—

•Tristram Shandy (1759-1767)

•A Sentimental Journey (1768)

—Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774)—

•The Vicar of Wakefield (1762)

—Horace Walpole (1717-1797)—

•The Castle of Otranto (1764)

“the gothic novel”

—Frances (Fanny) Burney (1752-1840)—

•Evelina (1778)

•Cecilia (1782)

•Camilla (1796)

•The Wanderer (1814)

—Charlotte Turner Smith (1749-1806)—

“Major in her day, under-read nowadays. Jane Austen read her books growing up, as they were published.”

•Elegiac Sonnets and Other Essays (1784)

•Emmeline (1788)

•Celestina (1791)

•Desmond (1792)

•The Old Manor House (1793)

•Marchmont (1796)

•The Young Philosopher (1798)

—Robert Burns (1759-1796)—

•Poems & Songs (1786-1795)

—James Boswell (‘40-‘95) & Samuel Johnson (‘09-‘84)—

•The Prince of Abissinia (1759)

•A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775)

•Journey of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)

•The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D (1791)

•A Dictionary of The English Language: an Anthology (1755)

—Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)—

•Vindication of The Rights of Women (1792)

—Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823)—

•The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)

—Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849)—

•Castle Rackrent (1800)

•Belinda (1802)

•Patronage (1814)

—Lord Byron (1788-1824)—

•Selected Poems (1807-1824)

——Jane Austen (1775-1817)——

•Pride & Prejudice (1813)

•Sense & Sensibility (1811)

•Mansfield Park (1814)

•Emma (1815)

•Northhanger Abbey (1818)

•Persuasion (1818)

•Lady Susan (1871)

•The Watsons (1804)

•Sanditon (1817)

•Austen’s letters, minor works, and Juvenilia including “Love and Friendship” and “The History of England” (1789-1817)

—Walter Scott (1771-1832)—

•Waverly (1814)

•The Antiquary (1816)

•Rob Roy (1817)

•Ivanhoe (1819)

—Mary Shelley (1797-1851)—

•Frankenstein (1818)*

—John William Polidori—

•The Vampyre (1819)*

—Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)—

•Vivian Grey (1826 Version) (1826)

•The Young Duke (1831)

•Sybil (1845)

—Sara Coleridge (1802-1852)—

•Phantasmion (1837)*

“first English fantasy novel”

——Charles Dickens (1812-1870)——

-The Picaresque Novels-

•Pickwick Papers (1837)

•Oliver Twist (1838)

•Nicholas Nickleby (1839)

•The Old Curiosity Shop (1841)

•Barnaby Rudge (1841)

•Martin Chuzzlewit (1844)

-The Christmas Novels-

•A Christmas Carol (1843)

•The Chimes (1844)

•The Cricket on the Hearth (1845)

•The Battle of Life (1846)

•The Haunted Man (1848)

-Later Novels-

•Dombey & Sons (1847)

•David Copperfield (1850)

•Bleak House (1853)

•Hard Times (1854)

•Little Dorrit (1857)

•A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

•Great Expectations (1860)

•Our Mutual Friend (1865)

•The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870)

—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)—

•The Yellowplush Papers (1837)

•Catherine (1840)

•A Shabby Genteel Story (1840)

•The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844)

•The Book of Snobs (1848)

•Vanity Fair (1848)

•Pendennis (1850)

•The History of Henry Edmond (1852)

•The Newcomes (1855)

•The Virginians (1859)

•The Adventures of Phillip (1862)

—John Ruskin (1819-1900)—

•The King of The Golden River (1841)*

—Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855)—

•Jane Eyre (1847)

•Villette (1853)

—Emily Brontë (1818-1848)—

•Wuthering Heights (1847)

—Anne Brontë (1820-1849)—

•Agnes Grey (1847)

•Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848)

—Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865)—

•Mary Barton (1848)

•Mr. Harrison’s Confessions (1851)

•Cranford (1853)

•Ruth (1853)

•North and South (1855)

•My Lady Ludlow (1858)

•Lois the Witch and Other Tales (1861)*

•A Dark Night’s Work (1863)

•Sylvia’s Lovers (1863)

•Wives and Daughters (1865)

—Anthony Trollope (1815-1882)—

-Standalone Novels-

•The Three Clerks (1857)

•Orley Farm (1862)

•Rachel Ray (1863)

•Miss Mackenzie (1865)

•The Claverings (1867)

•He Knew He Was Right (1869)

•Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblewaite (1871)

•Ralph the Heir (1871)

•The Eustace Diamonds (1871)

•Lady Anna (1874)

•The Way We Live Now (1875)

•The American Senator (1875)

•Cousin Henry (1879)

•The Fixed Period (1882)

-Chronicles of Baretshire-

•The Warden (1855)

•Barchester Towers (1857)

•Doctor Thorne (1858)

•Framley Parsonage (1861)

•The Small House at Allington (1864)

•The Last Chronicle of Baretshire (1867)

—Thomas Hughes (1822-1896)—

•Tom Brown’s School Days (1857)

•Tom Brown at Oxford (1861)

—George Elliot (1819-1880)—

•Scenes of Clerical Life (1857)

•The Lifted Veil (1859)*

•Adam Bede (1859)

•The Mill on the Floss (1860)

•Silas Marner (1861)

•Romola (1863)

•Felix Holt, The Radical (1866)

•Middlemarch (1872)

•Daniel Deronda (1876)

•Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879)

—George MacDonald (1824-1905)—

•Phantastes (1858)*

•The Princess and The Goblin (1872)*

—Lewis Caroll (1832-1898)—

•Adventures in Wonderland (1865)*

•Through the Looking Glass (1871)*

•Jabberwocky (1871)*

•The Hunting of the Snark (1876)*

—Samuel Butler (1835-1902)—

•Erewhon (1872)

•The Way of All Flesh (1903/1964)

—Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)—

•Under the Greenwood Tree (1872)

•A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873)*

•Far From the Maddening Crowd (1874)

•The Return of the Native (1878)

•The Trumpet-Major (1880)

•The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)

•The Woodlanders (1887)

•Wessex Tales (1888)

•Tess of The D’Ubervilles (1891)

•Life’s Little Ironies (1894)

•Jude the Obscure (1895)

—Henry James (1843-1916)—

•The American (1877)

•Daisy Miller (1879)

•Washington Square (1880)

•The Portrait of a Lady (1881)

•The Bostonians (1886)

•The Aspern Papers (1888)

•What Maisia Knew (1897)

•The Turn of the Screw (1898)

•The Wings of The Dove (1902)

•The Ambassadors (1903)

•The Golden Bowl (1904)

—Robert Stevenson (1850-1894)—

•Treasure Island (1883)

•Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (1886)

•Kidnapped (1886)

—Mrs. Humphrey Ward (1851-1920)—

•Robert Elsmere (1883)

•Helbeck of Bannisdale (1898)

•Lady Rose’s Daughter (1903)

—Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)—

•The Picture of Dorian Grey (1890)

•The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

—George Gissing (1857-1903)—

•Born in Exile (1892)

—H.G. Wells (1866-1946)—

•The Time Machine (1895)*

•War of the Worlds (1898)*

•Kipps (1905)

•The History of Mr. Polly (1910)

—Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970)—

•A Room with a View (1908)

•Howard’s End (1910)

•A Passage to India (1924)

—James Joyce (1882-1941)—

•Dubliners (1914)

•A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man (1916)

•Finnegan’s Wake (1939)

—Dorothy Richardson (1873-1957)—

•The Pilgrimage (1915-1938)

1. Most of the non-novels included are major influences of Jane Austen, the other few are of particular personal interest.

2. Books with an asterisk ‘*’ are not only of literary merit but also foundational works of the developing genre of speculative fiction, including fantasy and sci-fi.

3. Only British works are included in this list, however, I do read plenty of non-British works, but those works are not the focus of this list.

4. Early boarding school fiction is also highlighted in this list, therefore including authors not traditionally considered as part of the Classic "Western Canon" such as Benjamin Disraeli and Thomas Hughes.