Four "classic" books

My lovely friend Julie at  Thinking About…  posed an interesting question.   If you had to choose four books published before 1970 (an arbitrary but harmless date), what four would you choose?  This was actually easier than I thought.  Sadly rejecting

Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Seven Minutes by Irving Wallace
Diary Of A Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith
and even My Early Life by Winston Churchill,

I decided on the following:

Great Expectations  by Charles Dickens
Thank You, Jeeves  by P. G. Wodehouse
The Day Of The Triffids  by John Wyndham
Flashman  by George MacDonald Fraser

Agreement or arguments, anyone?
.

Comments

[J]

So have you read these four and loved them, or are they books that you *want* to read? I'm currently switching up the books on my 'classics' reading challenge, which is where this came from. I need to read 4 books, written before 1970. I've read one thus far, three to go. It's fun.

I've actually not read any Charles Dickens. We own A Christmas Carol and Little Dorrett, but Little Dorrett scared the crap out of me because it's so dang thick.

I haven't heard of any of the others. Sigh. Though I have heard of PG Wodehouse.

[samulli]

Hm, if you had to choose 4 books - choose them for what, exactly? 4 books you liked or 4 books you want to read or ...?

That said, with the exception of my beloved post-apocalyptic novels, many of which have been written in the paranoid 50's, I seldom read old books. So "The Day of the Triffids" would probably be on my list (if we are talking about favorites here), but so would "Three Men in a Boat". Along with 2 other post-apo's (prob. "Alas, Babylon" and "A Canticle for Leibowitz", or "The Tripods" - or several others).
Dickens isn't my cup of tea at all. And Wodehouse runs outside of all competition in a class of his own (well, maybe together with Pratchett). :)
"Catch-22" I read a couple years ago, but I just didn't get it, all it did was aggravate me with its pointlessness. Not my thing at all.
The others I have never heard of.

[Rasmenia]

Hmm... the majority of books that I read were written before 1970. I'd say that more than 1/2 of the books on my shelves were written before 1970 & I don't want to list them all. ;)

But, Vonnegut & Kerouac are a couple of my favorites. Since Kerouac died in 1969, everything that he wrote would fit in there.

I'm curious - are these 4 of your all-time favorites, or 4 that will always stay with you for one reason or another? The only one here that I haven't heard of before is "Flashman".

[Hill]

Before 1970. WAY before.

Faves:

1. Last of the Mohicans - James Fenimore Cooper

2. All poetry by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

3. The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck

4. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

:)

[Wylie]

I would add Anne of Green Gables to that list. Classic children's literature.