Where to start with the classics: twelve first chapters to try

“Classic” is an off-putting word. It suggests homework, small print and a book you are supposed to admire rather than enjoy. But a book usually becomes a classic for a simple reason: generations of ordinary readers liked it enough to pass it on. The difficulty is knowing which one to pick up first. Here are the twelve on 360book, sorted by what you might be in the mood for. Every one opens on its first page, free, with nothing to download.

If you want something short

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells can be read in an evening. A Victorian inventor travels eight hundred thousand years into the future and does not like what he finds. It moves fast and the ending stays with you.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is shorter still, and funnier than you may remember. Read it for the dialogue, which is some of the sharpest nonsense in English.

If you want a mystery

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is twelve separate cases, each about half an hour’s reading. You can stop after any of them. If you are unsure about older books in general, begin here: the prose is plain and the plots are quick. Our guide to reading Sherlock Holmes suggests an order.

Dracula is longer and told through diaries and letters, which makes it feel like evidence being assembled. The first four chapters, set in the castle, are as tense as anything written since.

If you want a love story with some bite

Pride and Prejudice is a comedy before it is a romance. The first chapter is two pages of a married couple needling each other, and it tells you at once whether Jane Austen’s humour is for you. See our first-time reader’s guide.

Jane Eyre is darker and more intense: an orphan, a harsh school, a house with a secret. Jane tells her own story and her voice is the reason to read it.

If you want adventure

Treasure Island invented most of what we think we know about pirates, and it wastes no time. A dangerous stranger arrives at the inn on the first page.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a good one to read aloud to a child. It differs from the film in ways that are fun to spot.

If you want something unsettling

Frankenstein is not the story the films tell. The creature speaks, reads and argues his case, and the book is sadder and more thoughtful than its reputation. Our article on the book versus the films explains the differences.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a moral horror story dressed as a comedy of manners. Oscar Wilde’s wit is on every page of the opening chapters.

If you want something to read slowly

Gitanjali is 103 short prose poems by Rabindranath Tagore. Read three or four at a time, not the whole book at once.

Walden is Henry David Thoreau’s account of two years in a cabin by a pond. It is best taken a few pages at a time, with a pencil for the sentences you want to keep.

How to read older prose without giving up

• Give it twenty pages. Sentences were longer in the nineteenth century. Your ear adjusts faster than you expect, usually within a chapter.
• Do not look up every word. If you can follow the sense, keep going. Stop only when you are truly lost.
• Read the dialogue aloud if a passage feels stiff. Austen and Wilde were writing lines meant to be heard.
• Skip the introduction. Scholarly introductions often give away the ending. Read them afterwards.
• Abandon freely. If a book is not working after a fair try, pick another. Nobody is marking you.

Try before you commit

The point of a preview is that it costs you nothing. Open three of these, read the first two pages of each, and continue with whichever one you did not want to stop. That is a better test than any list, including this one.

All twelve books are in the library. If you are curious why they are free to publish, see what the public domain is.