Can anyone recommend any of the classic texts from 1700-1899 that read like thrillers?
I’ve tried a few of the classics and other than Dickens, they are very plodding and meandering. I’d like to read something that would appeal to a modern audience without boring them to tears.
Thank you
by ImageMirage
11 Comments
Try novellas.
Sherlock Holmes stories are generally fast paced and a lot more action-y. Dickens is great, but… long agreed.
You may like Poe’s detective stories (though they are quite short).
Have you read Dracula or anything by Wilkie Collins?
I’m sorry, OTHER than DICKENS? *Other than*? His ass was paid by the word.
Insanity.
Anna Karenina.
Lady Audley’s secret by Mary Braddon wasn’t bad. Classic Victorian melodrama.
H Rider Haggard’s Allan Quartermain and she books were action books io the era, but full of British Imperial attitudes which may be offensive today.
Frankenstein is much more modern in style than I expected for a book written over 200 years ago. Your requested date range is much longer than the Victorian era by the way.
The Woman in White or The Moonstone, both by Wilkie Collins.
Check out *The War of the Worlds* by H. G. Wells – it’s really fun and has a great pace to it.
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Harding
King of the vagabonds by Neil Stephenson. It’s like the big Lebowski but in Victorian era Europe. Written in our time, but it’s great.
Jules Verne. Edgar Rice Burroughs.