Some good news to start the new year – I’ve completed my Classics Club list at last! Yesterday I reviewed my 50th and final book, The Silver Branch by Rosemary Sutcliff, and now it’s time to think about posting a new list. Before I do that, though, I want to look back at the list I’ve just finished.
The Classics Club was launched in 2012 with the aim of uniting people who like to read and blog about classic literature. The idea is to make a list of fifty or more classics you want to read within a five year time period. I finished my first list of 100 books in October 2017 – you can see the complete list, with links to my reviews, here. I then started again with a second list (just 50 books this time) and for some reason, even though it was shorter, it has ended up taking a lot longer to complete than the first.
Here are the books I read for my second Classics Club list:
1. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
2. Jezebel’s Daughter by Wilkie Collins
3. The New Magdalen by Wilkie Collins
4. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens
5. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
6. La Dame aux Camelias by Alexandre Dumas fils
7. Castle Dor by Daphne du Maurier
8. Don’t Look Now and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier
9. Farewell the Tranquil Mind by RF Delderfield
10. Moonfleet by John Meade Falkner
11. Nightmare in Berlin by Hans Fallada
12. Tales from the Underworld by Hans Fallada
13. Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden
14. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
15. The Black Lake by Hella S. Haasse
16. In a Dark Wood Wandering by Hella S Haasse
17. Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy
18. A Laodicean by Thomas Hardy
19. The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy
20. Two on a Tower by Thomas Hardy
21. Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
22. The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr by ETA Hoffmann
23. The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby
24. Goodbye Mr Chips by James Hilton
25. Random Harvest by James Hilton
26. Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household
27. In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B Hughes
28. Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy B Hughes
29. The Europeans by Henry James
30. A Pin to See the Peepshow by F Tennyson Jesse
31. Dubliners by James Joyce
32. How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
33. That Lady by Kate O’Brien
34. The Elusive Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
35. I Will Repay by Baroness Orczy
36. The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter
37. The Manuscript found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki
38. Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault
39. Bardelys the Magnificent by Rafael Sabatini
40. St Martin’s Summer by Rafael Sabatini
41. Pied Piper by Nevil Shute
42. The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson
43. The Silver Branch by Rosemary Sutcliff
44. A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor
45. Wild Strawberries by Angela Thirkell
46. High Rising by Angela Thirkell
47. The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope
48. The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
49. The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
50. The Fortune of the Rougons by Émile Zola
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I enjoyed nearly all of these books, but if I had to pick some favourites they would be Random Harvest, In a Lonely Place, How Green Was My Valley and In a Dark Wood Wandering.
I hope to post my new list later in the month!
She Reads Novels 
Congratulations! What a massive accomplishment – did you ever find yourself swapping out books from the list or did you stick to the same picks all the way through?
Thanks! Yes, I swapped out quite a few of them, although I didn’t keep track of which ones. I would probably never have finished my list otherwise, as some of the books I originally included just don’t appeal to me at all anymore.
Seems like building in flexibility is the key to pretty much every reading project!
Congratulations from me too, what a fabulous range of styles, genres and authors! I regret to say I’ve only completed Moonfleet from your list, having stalled on several others many years ago – particularly the Hardy novels – and a couple of others more recently (the Q / Du Maurer ‘collaboration’). But I do wish you the very best for your next list; and who knows, I may have even read more titles on it than I read this time!
Thank you! I love Hardy, but I know he’s not for everyone. As for Castle Dor, it’s my least favourite of all du Maurier’s novels, so I’m not surprised you stalled on that one. My new list should be ready next week!
Congratulations!! Like I said this is brilliant! How Green was my Valley is one of my all time best reads too!
Thank you! I loved How Green Was My Valley – glad you did too!
Congratulations! Fun to see Mr Chips there. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that title on a CC list.
Thanks! I had Lost Horizon on my first CC list, which I loved, so put more of his books on this one.
Strangers on a Train and The End of the Affair are both great. Enjoy!
Thanks! I’ve read both of those (this is my wrap-up post) and I liked them both. I’m including more books by Highsmith and Greene on my next list!
Congratulations on completing another list! That’s amazing!
https://melaniesmithsbookblog.wordpress.com/2026/01/03/26-in-2026-classics-club/
Thank you!
Hurrah, well done! Look forward to seeing your new list!!
Thanks! New list coming next week.
I have the sequel to How Green Was My Valley on my new (second) Classics Club list, as well as Castle Dor and Goodbye Mr Chips.
I forgot that there was a sequel to How Green Was My Valley. I hope it’s good!
Congratulations Helen! You have read some great books. 😍📚
Thank you! I enjoyed most of them.
Good for you, Helen!
Thanks!
Congratulations! Some great books on your list and I’ve been tempted by many of your reviews. Can’t wait to see List 3!
Thanks! List 3 coming next week – maybe there’ll be more temptations on there!
Wow. Another 50 classics read. That’s amazing. Congrats! 😀
Thank you!
Congratulations, between this and the previous list that you’ve mentioned it sounds like you’ve read a huge number of classics. Im ashamed to say I haven’t heard of all of these titles but I guess that just goes to prove that there are way more options when it comes to classics than I realised. I look forward to seeing what you put on your next list.
I had a lot of the more famous classics on my previous list, so some of the books on this list are less well known. Also, the Classics Club lets us decide what we personally consider a classic – I think the only rule is that they need to be published at least twenty-five years ago. I’m trying to decide what to put on my third list now!
Brilliant! I’ve been back to look at your Zola review because I still can’t decide whether to start at the beginning! Looking forward to your new list. . .
It’s probably not necessary to start the Zola series from the beginning, but I thought it made sense! I’m putting the second book on my new list.