# Recommend me some good English lit - copyright expired **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 16, 2009, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914 "2009-06-16T05:37:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/1 "2009-06-16T05:37:05Z")
So, I have read Dickens (not all, by any means, but plenty), Thackeray, Trollope, Austen, Scott, Hardy, Hawthorne, Conrad, and (stepping outside of English) Hugo and Dumas pére. Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy are not strangers to me. Melville - well, I tried, he defeated me. I have also read any number of early-20th Century pulpy novels by such as Haggard and Edgar Wallace. Enjoyable as far as they go, but perhaps a bit repetitive. I am looking for great or wonderful or at least enjoyable novels by other authors, either originally in English or with creditable translations. The main other requirement is that they should be out of copyright, so I can find them for my Kindle for free (or next to it). I am a cheapskate, after all. Not particularly interested in short stories, drama or poetry. It’s the novel for me, big, deep and rich, with wonderful characters that will engage my emotions. So, how about it, who has some ideas for me? Grateful in advance, Roddy ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/2 "2009-06-16T07:08:36Z")
Have you read George Eliot? I think _Middlemarch_ qualifies as big, deep, and rich. For lighter fare, how about Wilkie Collins (_The Woman in White_, _The Moonstone_). ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/3 "2009-06-16T08:19:47Z")
• Lady Murasaki, _[The Tale of Genji](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_Genji)_ • Henry Fielding, _Tom Jones_ — Bawdy fun • Stendahl, _The Red and the Black_ — Al Gore’s favorite novel • Henry James, _The Ambassadors_ • Edith Wharton, _[The Custom of the Country](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Custom_of_the_Country)_ • Booth Tarkington, _The Magnificent Ambersons_ • Theodore Dreiser, _Sister Carrie_ ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/4 "2009-06-16T13:18:05Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Melville - well, I tried, he defeated me. Did you go straight for _Moby Dick_, or have you tried some of his earlier, more accessible nautical yarns? _Redburn_ is a loosely (and somewhat fictionalized) autobiographical account of Melville’s first sea voyage as a youth, and my favorite of the bunch. There are also _White Jacket_, and his tropical tales, _Typee_ and _Omoo_. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/5 "2009-06-16T15:39:32Z")
Weird choice - I’d never heard of this guy until recently - but I’ve now read two books by _Arnold Bennet_ (ca. 1860-1930) and really enjoyed them. _The Card_ and especially _The Old Wives Tale_ are light, but show a keen understanding of human nature. They are both set in small-town England in the midst of change from quaint nineteenth century life to the fast-paced twentieth century. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/6 "2009-06-16T15:43:40Z")
Mark Twain’s an obvious recommendation. And if you’re looking for someone less known, check out Winston Churchill. Not that [Winston Churchill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill), the [other one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill_(novelist)). ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/7 "2009-06-16T16:12:56Z")
How about the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle? Most of them are in the public domain now. Novels, novellas, and short stories. I picked up the entire Holmes library from Amazon for my Kindle for like 30 cents. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/8 "2009-06-16T17:36:32Z")
More ideas: _The Sea Wolf_ by Jack London. The title character is fascinating. _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ by Oscar Wilde. _Around the World in 80 Days_ by Jules Verne. Maybe some of his other stuff too, but this is what I remember liking. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/9 "2009-06-16T18:56:27Z")
You absolutely must try [The Flying Inn](http://www.kimcm.dk/Documents/The_Flying_Inn.html), by G. K. Chesterton. This is a wonderful comic epic written around 1920 that’s amazingly current almost a century later. The plot goes something like this. In Britain, a coalition of meddling nanny-state tyrants and Muslim extremists conspires to have all alcohol prohibited. Upon hearing the news, an old English innkeeper and a wild Irish sea captain decide that they’re going to defy the authorities and keep selling beer. The authorities show up to arrest them, but they escape and start touring the country with a cask of ale and a large round of cheese, bringing good cheer to the oppressed populace. Many madcap adventures ensue. It’s one of the most hilarious novels I’ve ever read–not the old-fashioned humor that’s kind of funny if you pretend to be a Victorian, but really funny. And it has lots of poetry, including the famous _Rolling English Road_. Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode, The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road. A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire, And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire; A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head. I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire, And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire; But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made, Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands, The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands. His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun? The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which, But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch. God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier. My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage, Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age, But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth, And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death; For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen, Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green. ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/10 "2009-06-16T19:17:06Z")
Another comic novel is Jerome Jerome’s [Three Men in a Boat (to say Nothing of the Dog).](http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/308)Highly recommended. Assuming by “English” you mean in the English Language, there is also [James Branch Cabell](http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/c#a166), who is well represented in Gutenberg–I would recommend \*Jurgen \*and \*Figures of Earth \*from that list. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/11 "2009-06-16T19:53:39Z")
Wow - getting some good ideas here. Thanks for starting this thread, **Roderick**. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/12 "2009-06-16T21:27:41Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Have you read George Eliot? I think _Middlemarch_ qualifies as big, deep, and rich. > > For lighter fare, how about Wilkie Collins (_The Woman in White_, _The Moonstone_). I think I tried Eliot once, maybe it’s time to try again. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/13 "2009-06-16T21:29:01Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > • Lady Murasaki, _[The Tale of Genji](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_Genji)_ > • Henry Fielding, _Tom Jones_ — Bawdy fun > • Stendahl, _The Red and the Black_ — Al Gore’s favorite novel > • Henry James, _The Ambassadors_ > • Edith Wharton, _[The Custom of the Country](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Custom_of_the_Country)_ > • Booth Tarkington, _The Magnificent Ambersons_ > • Theodore Dreiser, _Sister Carrie_ Most of these sound lovely (except Dreiser, too preachy for me). Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/14 "2009-06-16T21:30:02Z")
> [@Miss\_Mapp](#): > > Did you go straight for _Moby Dick_, or have you tried some of his earlier, more accessible nautical yarns? _Redburn_ is a loosely (and somewhat fictionalized) autobiographical account of Melville’s first sea voyage as a youth, and my favorite of the bunch. There are also _White Jacket_, and his tropical tales, _Typee_ and _Omoo_. I think it was Typee (or Omoo) that I tried and failed at. Maybe I could try again. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/15 "2009-06-16T22:01:39Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > More ideas: > > _The Sea Wolf_ by Jack London. The title character is fascinating. > > _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ by Oscar Wilde. > > _Around the World in 80 Days_ by Jules Verne. Maybe some of his other stuff too, but this is what I remember liking. Thanks, I have read these at one time or another, as well as pretty much all of Twain, and Sherlock Holmes. Appreciate the suggestions, though. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/16 "2009-06-16T22:03:30Z")
> [@Reno\_Nevada](#): > > Another comic novel is Jerome Jerome’s [Three Men in a Boat (to say Nothing of the Dog).](http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/308)Highly recommended. > > Assuming by “English” you mean in the English Language, there is also [James Branch Cabell](http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/c#a166), who is well represented in Gutenberg–I would recommend \*Jurgen \*and \*Figures of Earth \*from that list. Making notes on cuff to check these out. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![rjk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@rjk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjk)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/17 "2009-06-17T05:36:27Z")
I see that no one mentioned H. G. Wells or Edgar Rice Burroughs, both with quite a few titles. [Two Years Before the Mast](http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4277) is a memoir of a voyage in the 1830s as seen by a common sailor. Project Gutenberg isn’t the only place to find things to read. Google has a lot of scanned books, including some that are out of copyright. There’s also [Baen Books](http://www.baen.com/), a science fiction publisher with a number of their titles available for free download. A search for “free books download” lists many more sites. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/18 "2009-06-17T19:00:07Z")
> [@rjk](#): > > I see that no one mentioned H. G. Wells or Edgar Rice Burroughs, both with quite a few titles. > > [Two Years Before the Mast](http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4277) is a memoir of a voyage in the 1830s as seen by a common sailor. > > Project Gutenberg isn’t the only place to find things to read. Google has a lot of scanned books, including some that are out of copyright. There’s also [Baen Books](http://www.baen.com/), a science fiction publisher with a number of their titles available for free download. A search for “free books download” lists many more sites. Thanks, **Rik** , I have read “Two Years Before The Mast” a number of years ago, and enjoyed it very much. Wells might be worth another look, I’m sure he has a lot of stuff I haven’t read. I’m afraid I devoured about all of Burroughs as a kid. I downloaded a bunch of the earlier suggestions (special thanks to **Walloon, bup, ITR champion** and **Reno** ) last night, and I will surely start one of them as my next book, after I finish my current one, yet another Dickens (_Dombey and Son_). Roddy ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/19 "2009-06-17T23:10:17Z")
Charlotte Bronte is conspicuously absent from your list. Did you try her and she wasn’t to your liking? Her two sisters were darned good writers, too. My favorite Bronte novel is not _Jane Eyre_ but _Villette_. I like her snarky observations on the character of the Belgians. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914/20 "2009-06-17T23:31:46Z")
The _Fairie Queene_ by Spenser and _Gorboduc_ by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-english-lit-copyright-expired/499914.md?page=2)