L'Ingénieux Hidalgo Don Quichotte de la Manche

Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy get off to the worst possible start in Austen's comedy of manners, here in French. Familiar enough that you can follow it even when the vocabulary gets ahead of you.

Jane Austen

A destitute student murders a pawnbroker and then has to live inside his own head. Dostoevsky's psychological novel in its French edition.

Fiodor Dostoïevski

The March sisters grow up during the American Civil War while their father is away. Warm, episodic and gentle on the reader, which makes it good French practice.

Louisa May Alcott

An orphan becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall and finds out what her employer keeps upstairs. The classic Lesbazeilles Souvestre translation, complete and unabridged.

Charlotte Brontë

Tom Sawyer talks his way out of every chore and into every kind of trouble along the Mississippi. Short chapters and plenty of incident.

Mark Twain