One thing I was looking forward to when we started talking about settling down here was to start putting together a nice collection of books. 
 
I was delighted when I found that Barnes And Noble sold (stylish) hardcover versions of classics at such reasonable prices. Having studied french literature, I figured it was about time to dedicate myself to english literature.
 
I am obviously familiar with a bunch of UK/US authors but in most cases, I've read translations because that's all you could find back home. Hence, I've recently started reading Shelley's Frankenstein in English for the first time in my life. Up next, obviously,  Stoker's Dracula, then the works of Poe and Lovecraft. All of which I've already read translations of. These should satisfy my thirst for the genre.
 
The latest addition to my collection which I've just ordered should consist of the works of Shakespeare, Dickens and Doyle's entire Sherlock Holmes series.
 
Before Mosh drops in and tells me that I've got it all wrong and I should be reading the works of Rexroth, Gregory Corso and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, I feel appropriate to mention that my knowledge of American literature is in no way limited to Kerouac, Miller and Whitman - though I've obviously read most of what they've written... :P
 
With that out of the way, I was wondering if some of you guys would have suggestions for "classics" - pre-20th century stuff mostly, I guess. You know, the english equivalent of Rabelais, Balzac and Hugo, that sort of thing.

Not sure what you're looking for...  Catcher In the Rye?  Moby Dick?  Lord of the Flies?  Canterbury Tales?  Death of a Salesman?  Jane Eyre?  For Whom the Bell Tolls?  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?  Fahrenheit 451?  Slaughterhouse-Five?  The Iliad and the Odyssey?  Of Mice and Men?  Paradise Lost?  I'm sure I'll remember more later...
 
As for me, I like Ayn Rand's works like Atlas Shrugged or the Fountainhead.  Science Fiction is a big one for me too.  The Dune series among many others.
 
Steve will be along shortly (no pun intended) to suggest Fapula by Hand Stroker. 

craigb
Not sure what you're looking for...  Catcher In the Rye?  Moby Dick?  Lord of the Flies?  Canterbury Tales?  Death of a Salesman?  Jane Eyre?  For Whom the Bell Tolls?  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?  Fahrenheit 451?  Slaughterhouse-Five?  The Iliad and the Odyssey?  Of Mice and Men?  Paradise Lost?  I'm sure I'll remember more later...
 
As for me, I like Ayn Rand's works like Atlas Shrugged or the Fountainhead.  Science Fiction is a big one for me too.  The Dune series among many others.
 
Steve will be along shortly (no pun intended) to suggest Fapula by Hand Stroker. 

Mostly, classics english literature - so Homer wouldn't qualify. ;) Obvious old classics - along the line of Dickens and Shakespeare or even more popular ones, like R.L. Stevenson. Mark Twain works. :)
 
I'll get to Hemingway, Steinbeck and company eventually.
 
 

Hemingway:
The Old Man and the Sea
 
Steinbeck:
Of Mice and Men
 
Stephen Crane:
Red Badge of Courage
 
Anything by Mark Twain
 
Ray Bradbury:
The Martian Chronicles
 
 
 

My favourite of the genre, and possibly the best English writer of the supernatural;
 

It's relatively new (1940's), but the 'Gormenghast' trilogy by Mervyn Peake is a stunning piece of literature;
 

 
 

I am of the belief that P.G. Wodehouse was the greatest English writer in history. At the peak of his writing career (1930's onward), he wrote some of the funniest literature that has ever been written in the English language, and his style was exquisite. If he's not considered one of the "classics" then he should be. Everyone should read at least one Jeeves and Wooster book (Code Of The Woosters and Joy In The Morning are my favorites) and at least one Blandings Castle book (Uncle Fred In The Springtime, Summer Lightning or Heavy Weather for example). He has a way with words that hits your funny bone just right, and his plots are hilariously intricate. 

I agree with anything by Ray Bradury or Kurt Vonnegut.  
 
Then there's this one that's a bit more modern, but fits the theme of How They Won The War thread:  
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.  
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confederacy_of_Dunces
 
 

Thoreau

Pedro's dad.