10 Most Romantic Literary Classics *Guest Blogger*

Romance novels are a perennial bestseller…including some of the greatest works of literature in the English language. Far from dry and stuffy, these classics are alive with passion.

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. (Okay, this one was originally written in Russian.) Long before Lady Gaga sang of bad romance, Anna Karenina was caught between the father of her young son and the dashing soldier Vronsky. She chooses her illicit lover, but lives to regret her decision.

Definitive film version: 1935, starring Greta Garbo.

2. Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote. The story of an unrequited crush, Capote’s novella details the unnamed narrator’s fascination with a café society girl who breaks all the rules. She attracts men like a magnet, but seems to care for no one except her lost brother Fred.

Definitive film version: 1961 with Audrey Hepburn

3. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. Dr. Yury Zhivago, a physician and poet, fights to survive the brutal Bolshevik revolution only to fall in love with Lara, the wife of a revolutionary leader. Okay, this one was originally written in Russian, too.

Definitive film version: 1965, starring Omar Sharif.

4. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. Set during the First World War, Farewell tells the tragic love story of American Lt. Frederic Henry and English nurse Catherine Barkley.

Definitive film version: tough call, but the 1932 version with Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes slightly edges out the 1957 version with Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones.

5. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Gilded Age playboy Jay Gatsby may be many things - self-deluded, a con man, amoral - but he is also, undoubtedly, in love with Daisy Buchanan. Whether she ever truly returns his affections is the subject of great debate.

Definitive film version: 1974, with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow

6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Governess Jane Eyre falls in love with her employer, Edward Rochester. Just as they are about to marry, Jane discovers Edward’s secret: he already has a wife. A tragic fire brings them back together.

Definitive film version: 1943, starring Orson Welles

7. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Though widely remembered as a novel of sisterly love between the four March girls and their beloved Marmie, it’s also the story of Jo’s romantic entanglements. She’s loved by Theodore “Laurie” Lawrence, but rejects him and ultimately finds love with Professor Friedrich Bhaer.

Definitive film version: Equally enjoyable are the 1933 version starring Katherine Hepburn as Jo and the 1993 version starring Winona Ryder, with a young Christian Bale as Laurie.

8. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. When headstrong Elizabeth Bennet first meets Fitzwilliam Darcy, her impression of him is entirely negative. After a series of revelations that cast him in an entirely new light, the two are finally united.

Definitive film version: 1940, starring Laurence Olivier

9. Sonnets From the Portuguese by Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In this sequence of love poetry, the couple recounts their courtship and early marriage. Its most famous sonnet begins, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” “The Portuguese” was Robert’s nickname for Elizabeth.

10. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. A misplaced passion spills over into the next generation. Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, raised as brother and sister, seem destined to be together forever until Catherine rashly decides to marry her respectable cousin Edgar Linton. But Heathcliff will never forget her, even years after Catherine’s death.

Definitive film version: I favor the 1992 version starring Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes.

Author biography: Erin O’Riordan writes hot and steamy romantic fiction. Her short story “Post Op” appears in the Evernight Publishing anthology Indecent Encounters. She also reviews books of every description at http://www.erinoriordan.blogspot.com.