I read JE three times because it was the Academic Decathlon book. Thus, I gained a certain affection for it, but I don't think I would really love it on its own merits.

Wide Sargasso Sea is excellent. I didn't like The Eyre Affair (in part for the reasons PC mentions), though I agree that without JE first, it would be even less comprehensible.

though I agree that without JE first, it would be even less comprehensible.

I hadn't read JE since high school (the aforementioned three times), so I was really, really confused about what appeared to be the ending of JE in the world of TEA for most of the book, because I thought I had misremembered what actually happened in JE. I did think it was very, very clever for the events of the book to actually end up creating the ending we know now.

I was pretty much, um, obsessed with Jane Eyre the way 12 year olds can be obsessed.

I don't think I've read it in a decade. Probably should.

I don't think I've read all of Jane Eyre, I loved Wuthering Heights when I read it in middle school but wasn't so fond of it on reread as an adult.

I LOVE Middlemarch. I read it several summers ago at the beach and it was so wonderful. I leant it to Grandma E, I was surprised she hadn't read it. She told me "It's so wonderful, her way with words. I just want to go copy down every other line."

I'd read Silas Marner in high school and loved it. I also read Frankenstein in high school and loved it. I have never finished Dracula though. I start it but it doesn't enthrall me, I'm not sure why.

I'd read Silas Marner in high school and loved it.

Me too!

I keep hearing good things about Middlemarch. What the blinking hell is it actually about ?

PC, I liked the conceit, but the execution just didn't grab me. A little too arch or something.

I have never finished Dracula though. I start it but it doesn't enthrall me, I'm not sure why.

Because huge whopping chunks of it are kinda on the dry and boring side, and I say this as someone who re-reads Dracula at least once a year. (I even keep a paperback of it in my bookbag just in case I get stuck on the bus with nothing to read.)

Part of the reason I collect editions of Dracula is because it's THE source text for every vampire novel since. I mean, I'd love to collect editions of Something Wicked This Way Comes, but there aren't as many (affordable!) editions of it.

brenda, I don't really know what "arch" means, but I'd probably agree. That whole book was a slew of "Nice concept, poor execution."

I keep hearing good things about Middlemarch. What the blinking hell is it actually about ?

It's rural life in England in the 19th century. Lots of different characters and different things happening. It has the most beautiful writing.