Classic love stories are full of yearning, longing, and the kind of slow burn you don’t see very often today. It just so happens they’re some of my favorite books as well. Almost every era of my life has been marked by them, from Wuthering Heights when I was thirteen to Pride and Prejudice when I was twenty, to my more recent obsessions like The Blue Castle or North and South.
So, if you love romance and want some really good classics to get into, I’m here to tell you all about the very best books you should read. These are the ones that started it all, the enemies to lovers craze, the inklings or dark romance, and so much more.
Read on to find some of the best classic love stories ever told.
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
“One word more. You look as if you thought it tainted you to be loved by me. You cannot avoid it. Nay, I, if I would, cannot cleanse you from it. But I would not, if I could. I have never loved any woman before: my life has been too busy, my thoughts too much absorbed with other things. Now I love, and will love. But do not be afraid of too much expression on my part.”
This is like Pride and Prejudice, but moodier, with even more banter, and more focused on class. In this book, Margaret Hale is forced to move from her pleasant life in charmed southern England to the grittier, industrial small town in the North, where she encounters restless textile-manufacturing workers and a self-made man John Thorton. They clash over his treatment of his workers, but he falls almost immediately in love with Margaret. It’s really funny at times, and very romantic while still discussing topics and themes that are relevant to this day.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
“There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.”
“And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody.”
“And yours,” he replied with a smile, “is wilfully to misunderstand them.”
Obviously, you can’t have a list of best romance books at all without talking about Pride and Prejudice. If you enjoy enemies to lovers and some really good grovelling from the hero, this is your book because Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are the template upon which all of your favorite romance books have been built. You know the story already: Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy meet and it’s not all that cute. He finds her tolerable but not handsome enough, and she finds him stuffy and boring. But over the course of this book, they get to know each other better (and worse) and maybe even find their happily ever after.
A Room With a View by E. M. Forster
“It isn’t possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.”
A Room With a View is probably one of the most romantic classics out there. I got this book as a gift when I was about eight, and couldn’t really appreciate it until I was about 20, but it’s a lovely, tender love story. We follow Lucy who lives a rigid middle-class life and knows everything that will ever happen to her, until she takes a trip to Italy and her life changes forever due to some quirky hotel guests and most of all, the charming George Emerson. It’s so good and also very easy to read, and it has about 230 pages, so it’s short too.
Persuasion by Jane Austen
“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you.”
Persuasion is hailed as Jane Austen’s most romantic book and I have to agree. At the very least, it has one of the most beautiful love confessions ever written (even better than Darcy’s, yes), and it’s overall such a lovely, tender story. You’ll learn all about Anne and how she let the love of her life go eight years ago. Now her family is almost destitute but her love, Captain Wentworth is back, now rich and desirable by every young lady. Anne has to watch from the sidelines as other women pursue him, heartbroken and still deeply in love with him. Persuasion is quite short at around 250 pages, so you’ll read this in no time, and it will stay with you forever.
The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery
“Love you! Girl, you’re in the very core of my heart. I hold you there like a jewel. Didn’t I promise you I’d never tell you a lie? Love you! I love you with all there is of me to love. Heart, soul, brain. Every fibre of body and spirit thrilling to the sweetness of you. There’s nobody in the world for me but you, Valancy.”
Anne of Green Gables is infinitely more popular, yes, but The Blue Castle is a special book that will steal your heart. It’s very short, but so impactful. Valancy Stirling is a spinster living with her controlling mother and cousin. Her entire family is actually awful, overbearing and controlling, and Valancy is convinced she’s not worth much. But then she finds out she might die soon, and she frees herself from the reins of her family and has a life she always wanted, with a man she always sort of liked. Just read it, it’s the best!
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
“I come here with no expectations, only to profess, now that I am at liberty to do so, that my heart is and always will be…yours.”
Sense and Sensibility gets overlooked so much that it should be a crime at this point. But it’s such a wonderful story, and I love it despite the fact that my English teacher made us read it in class one by one, passage by passage. In this story, you fillow the lives of Eleanor and Marianne, sisters whose father just died, leaving them and their mother and younger sister Beth destitute. They move into a cottage and try to make the best of it, while Eleanor misses her love and tries to stay strong and sensible for everyone, and her sister Marianne dashes off after handsome Captain Wiloughby. It’s a really cozy, lovely story, so do give it a try.
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
“I shall do one thing in this life – one thing certain – that is, love you, and long for you, and keep wanting you till I die.”
I watched the movie first and then read the book, and I have to say that the book is better. In it, Bathsheba Everdene moves into the area as a farmer and draws in different suitors: different suitors: another farmer Boldwood, a handsome soldier Sergeant Troy and a soft-hearted shepherd Gabriel Oak. They all complicate her life in different ways and she must learn what she wants out of life and her future to find her true love.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
“Who am I to tell her who to love? My job just to love her good and true myself.”
This is another book I wouldn’t call romantic or a romance, but it is about love, friendship, sisterhood, and just… you know what, just read it. It made me cry, it made me go wow, it made me hold my sister closer. This is beautiful storytelling at its very best. We see this story through a series of letters across years, and the main character is Celie, who goes through so much (and I mean so so much) and still remains open-hearted and full of love. There are lots of other women whose stories are told here, and it’s just magnificent. It’s not a light read, but it’s so worth it.
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
“To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else’s heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.”
I mean, I’m not saying the romance in this book is very healthy, but you cannot deny it’s a love story (and kind of romantic). Florentino and Fermina fall madly in love in their youth, but then Fermina marries another man and Florentino waits for his chance for 50 years until her husband finally dies and he can once again be with his Fermina.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
“I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you. You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel–I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you–and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.”
Again, not saying “healthy” romance, but you know what, it does have a love story, so it counts. In Jane Eyre, Jane becomes a governess in the home of broody Mr. Rochester. He tries to seduce her but even as she falls for him, her spirit is strong and her convictions as well, so you’ll enjoy plenty of put-downs from Jane (she’s no meek heroine). And there are, of course, secrets in Rochester’s home that she has to uncover. I’d say this could comfortably sit in the gothic section, but we’re keeping it here!
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
“I watched her die many times. In my way, not in hers. In sunlight, in shadow, by moonlight, by candlelight. In the long afternoons when the house was empty. Only the sun was there to keep us company. We shut him out. And why not? Very soon she was as eager for what’s called loving as I was – more lost and drowned afterwards.”
No one can tell me fan fiction is a new, shameful thing to read when books like this exist. Jean Rhys wrote an exquist fanfic of Jane Eyre, exploring the character of the woman in the attic. This story focuses on Antoinette Cosway, who has hopes and dreams of her own, as she gets sold to the famous Mr. Rochester and how this, and the society in general, can drive a woman to madness. It’s a very short read, about 100 pages, but it’s really good and while I wouldn’t call it a romance, it’s a good book to read if you enjoyed Jane Eyre.
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
“I want to put my hand out and touch you. I want to do for you and care for you. I want to be there when you’re sick and when you’re lonesome.”
Ethan Frome works his almost barren farm and lives an unhappy existence with his wife Zeena (who is a hypochondriac and difficult overall). And then her young, vivacious cousin is hired in their house as help, and he falls deeply in love with her. You see how it has to end in tragedy, right? But there’s romance and it’s really wonderfully written.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
“You may think it all very fine, Mr. Huntingdon, to amuse yourself with rousing my jealousy; but take care you don’t rouse my hate instead. And when you have once extinguished my love, you will find it no easy matter to kindle it again.”
Say what you will, by Anne Bronte is probably the most feminist Bronte of them all and she wrote a book about what happens after you marry the broody man (ehm, Heathcliff and Mr. Rochester), and how women often end up. So, obviously, this book is about a mysterious widow who moves into the titular Wildfell Hall, and Gilbert Markham who is simultaneously interested in her and also mistrustful of her because she’s keeping secrets.
Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali
“For me, love is something else entirely. It’s beyond all logic and impossible to describe or define. It’s one thing to like someone. To be consumed, body and soul, by desire is quite another. That’s what love is to me — desire that’s all-consuming. Desire that’s impossible to resist!”
We’re skipping a century or two here, but Madonna in A Fur Coat is a quintessential love story of literary canon. A shy young man leaves Turkey to go to Germany to learn a trade, and there he falls deeply in love with a woman who will haunt him for the rest of his life. If you want yearning, this is the yearniest, most melancholy love story you can read.
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
“Each time you happen to me all over again.”
Another Edith Wharton, but well worth a read. This one is longer, though, at around 300 pages. Countess Olenska returns to New York just as Newland Archer is about to announce his engagement to her cousin May. Newland gets smitten and they both feel a passionate bond between them, but Newland’s life is complicated and the society is against Countess Olenska and on the side of her cousin May, so there’s a conflict between love and duty.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
“He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.”
Yes, it’s tragic, we all know that, but you can’t deny there’s romance in there. We have a heroine who seems to have everything: wealth, beauty, a wonderful son. Unfortunately, from her perspective, her life is empty and void of joy until she meets the handsome, charming Count Vronsky with whom she starts a scandalous affair. Of course, it can only end badly, so she goes on a downward spiral. At the same time, we have the story of Konstantin Lev, who is sort of a stand in for Leo Tolstoy, and dives deeper into Russian peasant culture and wanting to make their life better.
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
“I believe this. When we meet those we fall in love with, there is an aspect of our spirit that is historian, a bit of a pedant who reminisces or remembers a meeting when the other has passed by innocently…but all parts of the body must be ready for the other, all atoms must jump in one direction for desire to occur.”
In which the nurse Hana falls in love with the mysterious burn victim and refuses to leave with the rest of the nurses when the war moves north. Set in an Italian monastery, with great characters such as the thief Caravaggio and Kip, it’s a heartbreaking sort of love story that does much more than tell you of a doomed love. This book won the Booker prize, and the prose is truly something to be experienced. Though, I’ve seen mixed reactions, so it may not work for you after all, but do give it a try if you want something unique and WWII themed.
Atonement by Ian McEwan
“Finally he spoke the three simple words that no amount of bad art or bad faith can every quite cheapen. She repeated them, with exactly the same slight emphasis on the second word, as though she were the one to say them first. He had no religious belief, but it was impossible not to think of an invisible presence or witness in the room, and that these words spoken aloud were like signatures on an unseen contract.”
A little girl sees her sister in a passionate moment with a man, misunderstands and sets off a series of events that will haunt both her, her sister and the man forever. Look, this is not a happy story, but it is a story of love and how enduring it can be. You’ll hate Briony, though.
Final Thoughts
I hope you found your new favorite book on this list! If not, drop a comment below with your specific request and I can help you find a new read to love. And if you’d prefer to browse on your own and not chat, here are some places you can go for more excellent book recommendations:
- If you want some classics that are easier to read, check out the best classics for beginners.
- If you still don’t know how to even begin reading classics, I have a guide on getting started here.
- If you don’t particularly care about the genre and just want the best of the best, here are the most amazing love stories ever told.
