Romance is the widest word on the site and the narrowest. It can mean a medieval tale of chivalry, a Gothic story about a woman in a castle, or the comic plot that ends in a marriage. This shelf takes the third and second senses: eight novels where the love plot carries the book, from The Monk of 1796 to The Great Gatsby of 1925.
The range is the point. Pride and Prejudice is an argument in drawing rooms; Ivanhoe is a tournament; The Three Musketeers turns a marriage into a political alliance. All eight ask the same question — who may marry whom, and what it costs — and answer it in a different century.
Every romance on this shelf
Eight titles, oldest first. Two are Gothic, one is a duel of wits, one is a swashbuckler.
| Year | Title | Author | Form | Words | Reading time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1796 | The Monk | M. G. Lewis | Novel | 136,866 | 8 h |
| 1813 | Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen | Novel | 122,000 | 7 h |
| 1820 | Ivanhoe | Walter Scott | Novel | 192,000 | 11 h |
| 1844 | The Three Musketeers | Alexandre Dumas | Novel | 226,061 | 13 h |
| 1851 | The House of the Seven Gables | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Novel | 104,846 | 6 h |
| 1910 | The Phantom of the Opera | Gaston Leroux | Novel | 84,181 | 5 h |
| 1922 | The Enchanted April | Elizabeth von Arnim | Novel | 78,345 | 4 h |
| 1926 | The Blue Castle | L. M. Montgomery | Novel | 69,000 | 4 h |
How this list was made
A title appears when its page records Romance, or Gothic romance, among the genres. That excludes novels with a love interest but another organising subject, such as Vanity Fair.
Words and reading times are for the editions here. The two shortest, at around 80,000 words each, are the quickest way in; the longest, Ivanhoe, is a weekend.
Questions readers ask
Is this the same as romantic fiction today?
Which one is the best introduction?
Why is The Great Gatsby listed?
Part of the complete catalogue and the themed reading lists. Nearby shelves: Satire · Historical Fiction · Short Stories · Memoir & Autobiography · Coming of Age · authors A–Z · word counts and reading times.