Some Exceptional Underrated Classic Books

hi i'm anne and welcome back to my channel today we are going to be talking about classics if there is one genre i love more than all others it is classics classics are amazing but i feel like when you say the word classic certain books come to mind whether it is jane austen's pride and prejudice or shakespeare's plays or even more modern classics like 1984 or lord of the rings by tolkien or even a child's book like chronicles of narnia but because i love classics so much i've read not only just the really popular classics but also a little bit lesser known classics so today i'm going to share with you my favorite lesser-known classics these are the ones that i never see talked about even though they are amazing books and they definitely deserve more attention than say books that are a little bit over hyped i'm not saying that prime prejudice is a horrible book but it is a little bit overhyped so i have 10 books to share with you today so let's get right into it also this will be in no order the first one is a book i feel like deserves so much more attention it is definitely the greatest pirate novel of all time and it seems to be underappreciated and that is captain blood by raphael savatini this book was originally written in italian and then later translated into english it tells the story of peter blood who is in england or scotland i believe and he is accused of a crime he did not commit shipped off to the americas to endure forced labor which was really common in the early colonies he ends up escaping and taking a bunch of other indentured servants with him and they end up seizing a ship and becoming pirates this is an exceptional book it's first and foremost a high seas adventure but it is also a romance as well as an understanding of this time period and how harsh it was and in a sense an understanding of captain blood because in the beginning he starts off as a very good moral character and because of the immorality of others in a sense he becomes immoral and later on when confronted by the woman he is falling in love with she calls him nothing but a thief and a pirate and that in a sense settles deep into his soul and really affects him for the rest of the book as he decides well have i become what i hated in the beginning so it's a really interesting book both because of the characters as well as just because of the adventure so i highly recommend it the second one is more for christians out there i guess and that is the robe by lloyd c douglas it is set during jesus's time where this young slave as well as this centurion who is roman ends up witnessing these miracles having to do with this robe that was jesus's and i would not say don't get me wrong the religion aspects of this book are really well handled but the best part of this book is the characters for me it starts off with marcellus being this very young but idealistic centurion from this wealthy roman family and his slave and probably best friend is demetrius and they are close friends but circumstances drive them apart this book deals with a lot of the ideas of slavery and a deep examination of power how a person should never be able to own a person demetrius eventually becomes free and it is a really great and exceptional book even if you are not christian but you're just interested in ancient roman society and how power dynamics worked and also just want to enjoy really well developed characters i highly recommend this book the next book i want to talk about i feel like i've talked about way too much and that is the bitter tea of general yen by grace zarin stone so this book was published in the 30s and it tells the story of megan this one young missionary who comes to meet her fiance in china she ends up almost getting killed by this mob that has broken out into fighting because of the conflict between the communists and the nationalists in china she ends up being rescued by this kind of mysterious man called general yen and she befriends him i wouldn't say this is a fully romantic book but there are some hints that it could be they made this absolutely horrific movie adaptation of it in the 30s which if you've ever watched the actor they picked out to be general yen was white and in order to make him look asian they put this like weird tape on his eyes and it takes cultural appropriation to a whole new level and it was truly horrific to watch but this book is amazing and it also deals with the idea of is tradition completely meaningless or is tradition everything and trying to balance uh progress with with tradition it is a really exceptional book sad ending though the next book is a very short book and that is the lilies of the field by william e barnett so this book tells of a xgi soldier he's just come back from war and obviously he's black and so he's dealt with some racism in the past he ends up traveling across america and meeting these adorable german nuns who are trying to build their church and he ends up building their church for them it is a very very sweet tale it's definitely more christian but it's not necessarily likable just because of the christian aspects like you could be an atheist and go into this book and enjoy it because it is honestly a tale about friendship between him and these nuns it's a very short book it's only a little bit over 100 pages and i highly recommend it the next classic is a relatively recent publication it only came out in 1970 which i feel like is not that long ago but also my view of a classic is if it is more than 50 years old and since it is 2021 this year that would mean that this would be over 50 years old so i'm going to go with the hour of the horde by gordon r dixon so this book follows this human man who's picked out out of all of humanity to be trained on this special mission to stop this highly advanced horde which is going through the galaxy and taking out all the planets so all these different confederations and worlds come together and send their best men on board to fight for them and he just happens to be one from earth so most of this book has to do with him getting to know and gaining the trust and gaining power on the ship that he has been put on to train to fight this horde as well as being able to problem solve how to take down this massive horde that is like 10 to 20 times the size of their ships so pretty much he's going on a suicide mission and it is an exceptional book not just because it's a fun sci-fi but also because the characters are just exceptionally done and it's definitely made me want to read more of dixon's work the next book is also published in 1970 but i feel like out of any on this list is definitely the most well-known and that is dirny rising by katherine kurtz so this is the first book of chronicles of dernie i tried to read the second book and i really didn't like it so the series does go down from here but i highly recommend this book it pretty much stands as a standalone so you could read this and not read anything else and still really enjoy it and this book follows this very young prince who is to be king and his advisor who are kind of trying to balance power grabs with protecting their kingdom against some evil people and i won't get too into it because spoilers but this is an exceptional fantasy book there's a lot of high fantasy series from this era that i feel like have been really forgotten and this is probably one that is more popular i feel like general fantasy fans have probably heard of this series because it is kind of big i definitely feel like compared to a lot of other classic fantasies that this one is less heard of so i highly recommend it the next book is one that i have not heard anyone talk about it and this was published in the early 1900s it is called the singing tree by kate cyridy so this book follows these two cousins most of the book follows them as well as just their family and town in general they live in hungaria and it follows their experiences through world war one as you know it starts before the war and then it goes to when they are adults after the war and it is a really sweet but sobering story they go through a lot but it is i would say it's a little bit of a family saga but it's mostly just about these two cousins there is a little bit romance it's it's very similar to anna green gables but i feel like this is better than so many other more popular classics that i have read that i wish that more people knew about this book because it is an exceptional narrative about war and loss and family and love and it is a really great book the next book is the only poem epic poetry that i have on this list and that is the battle of the white horse by gk chesterton this follows the tale of king alfred in the 9th century i believe he defended england against the danes that were trying to invade them so this is mostly a story of battles it is very similar if you have read the iliad it's more like a more modern feel of the iliad this is an exceptional book especially i'm a massive fan of gk chesterton but he's not an easy author to get into he his works are quite dense so what i love about this book is it's very easy to read especially if you have read any classic epic poetry whether it is beowulf or the iliad they are quite hard to digest but when it comes to this book it is very easy to read it doesn't use extremely difficult language to understand i read this back in high school and i had no trouble following along with the story so especially if you are interested in reading more classic poetry this is a must read and i feel like too few people know about this book the next two books i do not own in physical form the next one is i claudius by robert graves so this is a book that was written in the 1930s and it follows the life of claudius the roman emperor from when he is a young boy all the way until he becomes emperor the book ends with him becoming emperor i attempted to read the second book which is claudius the god and his wife messalina but i did not like that book half as much but this book was exceptional and if you are interested at all in classic antiquity if you like dark academia or you like aristotle or the old philosophers i highly recommend reading this book it takes a deep dive in understanding the society the power grabs the conflict in rome this of course takes place in around say 50 a.d so it is near the fall of the roman empire and it is an exceptionally detailed narrative that while it is in a sense fiction it does a good job in capturing the essence of roman life during that time the next book is a book that i've heard a lot of people have mixed feelings about i loved it but i've heard a lot of people did not like it and that is dead souls by nikolai gogol so this was published back in the 1840s and it is it was originally a russian but i obviously read it in english it follows this man who is traveling around the countryside in russia buying dead souls so during that time you would have census records that were taken every few years but between those years for example if you had a surf die and they had serfs back then in russia you wouldn't you would still have to pay taxes on them until the census records took a new census and then you would be free of the taxes you had to pay because you owned them it's a very very weird time i wouldn't say serfdom is the same as slavery but boy was it close and this man comes into town and he goes to all these wealthy powerful houses and says to them i would like to buy your dead serfs in a sense the people who have died but their names are still on the record as being owned by this wealthy person so for them it's pretty much him taking off their hands the taxes they would have to pay because they still have that name on their record so of course they're happy about it but everyone is really confused as to why he is doing this so it's a little bit of a mystery but it's very much an examination of russia during that time whether it is the vast variance between classes between the serfs and the nobility but also just simply between those wealthy people who didn't have land and didn't have serfs versus the nobility who did have land and did have serves and how you couldn't really have much class mobility in that society and it is a really fascinating book the characters are also very funny you can't take them completely seriously because they're absolute caricatures of very weird people but it is a very funny book to read in some senses but also very sobering because you understand what was going on in russia during that time and the final book on my list is north and south by elizabeth gaskell i feel like again this is slightly better known than a lot of these on the list this was published in the mid-1800s and it follows this young woman margaret whose family is from southern england and move north to a cotton factory town where she experiences how horrific factory towns were as well as she meets this factory owner and clashes with him named john thornton this is an exceptional love story but it's also again a very interesting examination of what was going on in england with the conflict of the cotton mills and the north and south divide between those who lived in the country and farmed and those who lived in factory towns and had a very rough and harsh life it's a really exceptional book and i highly recommend it they made a 2004 mini series of it starring richard armitage the mini series is really good and if you're not interested in reading the book um i highly recommend the mini series so there's my list of lesser known classic books that i believe more people should read have you read or heard of any of these books i'd love to know your thoughts down in the comments if you have any of your favorite classic books that pretty much no one ever talks about i'd love to hear more ideas of great lesser-known classics that i should read thank you for watching have a great week and i will see you in the next video bye [Music] you

Channel: Anne with a Book

Views: 553

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: books, reading, classic books, g.k. chesterton, catholic, fantasy classic books, sci-fi classic books, classic literature

Id: bgYBYUcl1Dw

Length: 16min 53sec (1013 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 20 2021