To me, "classic fiction" includes mostly older works, those published in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Some of them border on other genres, but those genres didn't really exist yet when these books were written. I'm not much for the classics, but I have a few.
I have a two-volume set of some of Rudyard Kipling's works, including THE JUNGLE BOOK and a number of his poems. Beside that is a nice edition of CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS, which I haven't gotten to read yet.
I have a collection of some of Mark Twain's most famous stories:
- THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER
- THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
- THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER
- A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT
Jules Verne can safely be said to be one of the fathers of science fiction, but his works usually aren't quite considered science fiction themselves. So my copy of 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA lives on my shelf of Classics, not in the SF section.
Well, actually, my three copies of 20,000 LEAGUES live there. Yes, I have three different versions of this classic:
- A small, beat-up paperback edition of the original English translation of Verne's original work. This translation was done by a chap named Mercier Lewis. I have it only for reasons of curiosity, because of what I discoveredwhen I ran across version #2.
- The Annotated 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Walter James Miller rights a horrible wrong that was done to Verne and his story by Mercier Lewis. Lewis's 'classic' translation of 20,000 LEAGUES is full of mistakes, mistranslations, and censored passages that turn a powerful and high-class SF/adventure story into a confused muddle fit only for children. Miller goes through Lewis's translation page by page, comparing it to the original French and correcting the myriad mistakes.
- Finally, there's a lovely, superbly illustrated hardcover edition that uses a new (relatively speaking) translation done by Anthony Bonner in 1962. Bonner's translation is somewhat modernized in tone and word choice, but semes to stick close to Verne's intended meaning.
Some people don't consider Jack London's writings to be great literature. Others do. Whoever put together my high school English curriculum certainly did. But even having the guts analyzed out of them didn't ruin his stories for me. I have a nice omnibus collection of three of his best-known works:
- THE CALL OF THE WILD -- Is there anyone who's read this story who doesn't remember it forever after? Buck is a large dog of indeterminate ancestry who lives with his master in southern California. His size, strength, and thick fur make him a natural candidate for a sled dog, so one night he's stolen by a crooked servant and sold north to be broken and trained as a sled dog in the Yukon during the great gold rush of 1897. The story then follows Buck through his experiences with several different owners -- Francois and Perrault, government couriers; a Scottish half-breed on the mail run from Skaguay to Dawson; Hal and Charles, tenderfoot fools who know nothing about dogs or the Arctic; and finally John Thornton, prospector and explorer. Along the way, Buck's nature changes from pampered pet to a half-wild almost-wolf, as he learns to survive in these primitive conditions.
- WHITE FANG -- London's second classic dog story is almost the antithesis of CALL OF THE WILD. White Fang is a puppy born to a feral dog, sired by an old one-eyed wolf. His first few months are spent in the wild. Then he's captured by Amerinds, raised and broken to work as a sled-dog. After a long time as an Amerind sled-dog, he's traded to a white man who wants him for dogfighting. With White Fang's wolf ancestry and experience in the wild, no dog can match him ... until the day he meets a bulldog, which nearly kills him. A mine-engineer named Scott breaks up the dogfight and saves White Fang's life, then gradually wins his trust and his love. White Fang winds up as a house-dog and companion -- though a very wild and wolfish one -- on Scott's family estate in southern California.
- THE SEA-WOLF -- The story of Wolf Larsen, captain of the seal-hunter schooner Ghost, as seen through the eyes of a man named Van Weyden, who Larsen rescued from a shipwreck and then forced into service as a crewman. I can't say a whole lot more about this story because I've never read it; from the descriptions I've read, I have no particular interest in doing so.
