While it’s open to debate whether The Lord of the Rings counts as one book, there’s no debate over The Hobbit.
By that logic, The Once And Future King deserves mention.
I refuse to choose one, but will second a few and first a few:
Perdido Street Station. It opened a new wing of the library, bringing Weird Fantasy back into the forefront. There’s a kitchen-sink attitude toward fantasy in it, and folks feel strongly about it one way or another; I happen to love it.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell: it’s kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum. Perdido is punk and weird and gritty; Strange/Norrell is prim and traditional and witty. I love them both, though, and think Strange/Norrell deserves all the praise it gets.
Maybe I should retry Little, Big someday. I tried it, and somewhere in the 500-page-long description of a house that, like, had weird angles, man, I got bored and wandered off.
Love that one as well. The first three books are very good, the rest…
Just to prove YMMV, Tigana was a letdown for me after reading so much hype about it. I’d probably go with LOTR and then T.H. White’s The Once and Future King.
I came in here specifically to suggest T.H. White’s Once and Future King. You could, I suppose, make the argument that it is also a collection (The Sword in the Stone was separately published, although it was substantially changed when incorporated into TOaFK, and The Book of Merlin, intended as the last book, was excised before finally being printed on its own many years later).
Most fantasy I’ve read has been in the form of short stories, or part of a series.
A few other stand-alone novels:
The Hour of the Dragon (AKA Conan the Conqueror) by Robert E. Howard. Part of his Conan stories, but can stand on its own as a novel.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mister Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. I was pleasantly surprised to find what a good read this is. It really is better than any of its screen adaptations.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft – one of his few novels, and a perennial favorite of mine. Is it “Horror” or “Fantasy”?
Silverlock by John Myer Myers – the ultimate fantasy meta-novel, cobbled together from lots of prior literature. You really do need a guide to all its references. There used to be one online, but it got taken down. Now you have to buy the NESFA Press edition to get them all. This guide outdoes Alan Moore in the “lets use up as much older literature as possible to construct a novel” department.
a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read this – easily more times than I’ve read any of his other works. Dickens tried four more times to recreate the experience with “Christmas” books, but I find his other such efforts unreadable (having read them). And they’re not connected directly with ACC.
Since we are including trilogies read in one sitting, I’m going to choose The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. Great postmodern fantasy, in my opinion.
If we’re counting children’s books it’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Otherwise, I have to mention The Princess Bride.
Depending on how you define fantasy (and it did win a World Fantasy Award), Ken Grimwood’s Replay.
Chimera, by John Barth is also spectacularly good. (It won a National Book Award)
True story.
My all-time favorite is Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean, which is barely a fantasy novel because 98% of the action is about the very real world experience of maturing into one’s intellectual life while at college. But the other 2% is about faeries, and it’s really critical to the story.
Other good ones:
Kraken by China Miéville is a more recent title that knocked me out.
Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan, is harrowing and sad and also very good.
Took the words right out of my mouth. “Little, Big” by John Crowley one of the best fantasy books ever. I think I have given away at least a dozen copies.
I have to agree with anything by China Mieville. I would also recommend Charles DeLint. But I am surprised no one has mentioned “Gormenghast” by Mervyn Peake
I came on here to recommend this. Outstanding handling of the subject matter.
I tend not to read Fantasy - well, not true; I’ve read a lot of the books mentioned, but don’t think of myself as a Fantasy guy (I favor hard Sci-Fi and dystopian/speculative fiction). But I haven’t read any Mieville although I have heard good things, although I hear he can be over-ambitious and not focus enough on telling the story. You like Kraken, eh? I need to check that out.
For the OP, I guess I would nominate Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I am not sure that counts as “classic” Fantasy. Just so interesting, funny and well-written.
Oh, and if we can keep the criteria somewhat broad, Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is fantastical and very, very well done.
Similarly, his Kafka on the Shore, which did win the World Fantasy Award.
Also surprised that Watership Down hasn’t been mentioned.
I’d choose Watership Down. However, it has a sequel called Tales from Watership Down. Does that disqualify it?
Gormenghast is part of the Titus Groan trilogy or I’d include it.
Tales From Watership Down isn’t a true sequel, more of a companion book full of El Ahrairah tales. As a high-schooler, I adored Watership Down, so when Tales came out in college, I was ecstatic–until I read it and realized the stories in it ranged from mediocre to dreadful, lacking all the charm and wit of the original stories. I don’t acknowledge its existence :).
In the field of children’s literature, The Tale of Despereaux is a strong contender. I’ve got a lot of kidlit that I love (The Neverending Story, for example, is a great book), but Despereaux is just phenomenally well written, delicious to read aloud, full of complex characters, symbolism, foreshadowing, and wit.
THIS is what I was going to say.
Kinda disappointed by some of the other recommendations in here though, honestly. Magician was…well, I guess it wasn’t bad. Good Omens was typical Gaiman fare, in that it was a good idea that wasn’t nearly as good as it should’ve been (in this case, in spite of some valiant effort by Mr. Pratchett) and War of the Flowers was… kinda interesting, but I felt something was missing.
I don’t think it’s as good as some of the others mentioned already, but I at least wanted to mention The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs.