 | The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman: The Florida Edition (Penguin Classics) by Laurence Sterne
Buy new: $8.57 / Used from: $4.52 The ultimate eighteenth-century novel. If you read this without referring back to Melvin New's footnotes, you are truly an eighteenth-century stud.
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 | A Sentimental Journey (Penguin Classics) by Laurence Sterne
Buy new: $8.00 / Used from: $2.15 If you don't have time to read Tristram Shandy, you should snuggle up to a copy of this delightful text.
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 | Evelina (Oxford World's Classics) by Frances Burney
Buy used from: $4.85 Edmund Burke stayed up late into the night until he finished this novel in one sitting. My favorite scene is the one with the monkey. Who can say no to monkeys? Nobody, that's who.
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 | The Mysteries of Udolpho (Penguin Classics) by Ann Radcliffe
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $5.98 The very first text to feature ghost pirates. She knows how to do Gothic the right way.
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 | Memoirs of the Extraordinary Life, Works & Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus: Written in Collaboration by the Members of the Scriblerus Club: John Arbuthnot, ... Parnell, and Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford
Buy used from: $9.00 If you can find a copy of this text, I highly recommend it. Best part: when Martin falls in love and marries one half of siamese twins.
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 | Roxana, Or The Fortunate Mistress (Penguin Classics) by Daniel Defoe
Buy new: $11.20 / Used from: $0.39 Everything Defoe writes is great, but I don't think Roxana gets as much credit as it should. Infamous for its abrupt ending, Roxana makes you fall in love for its corrupt heroine and her wicked ways.
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 | The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling (Penguin Classics) by Henry Fielding
Buy new: $8.00 / Used from: $1.92 Everyone loves Tom Jones. Everyone. And if you don't have time to read this 800 plus page novel, you'll still get a kick out of the film adaptation starring the hot, young Albert Finney. I love Albert Finney.
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 | A Journal of the Plague Year (Penguin Classics) by Daniel Defoe
Buy new: $7.91 / Used from: $1.50 Again, all things Defoe are exceptional. I couldn't stop reading this text.
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 | The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (Oxford World's Classics) by Tobias Smollett
Buy new: $10.95 / Used from: $0.74 I have no idea why this novel isn't taught in every classroom across the country. It's hilarious! And Tobias Smollett has the guts to write himself in as a minor character!
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 | Gulliver's Travels (Penguin Classics) by Jonathan Swift
Buy new: $8.00 / Used from: $4.00 The children's book versions and the crappy tv adaptations featuring Ted Danson don't even come close to doing any justice to this great work. If anything, read this book for those odd moments of sexual tension between the little Gulliver and the big Brobdingnaggian women.
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 | A Tale of a Tub and Other Works (Oxford World's Classics) by Jonathan Swift
Buy new: $10.95 / Used from: $0.73 Nearly everything Swift writes is worth reading. If you ever attend grad school, you'll find that you can answer almost every question with Swift's A Tale of a Tub. You've got a crazy, egomaniacal narrator, three brothers who are obsessed with their coats, and a whole lot of satire.
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 | Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners: Or Brief Faithful Relation Exceeding Mercy God Christ his Poor Servant John (Penguin Classics) by John Bunyan
Buy new: $9.75 / Used from: $2.95 I know this book is not supposed to be funny, but consider John Bunyan a proto-emo punk, if you will. You will find yourself laughing all the way through Bunyan's poignant autobiography.
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 | Restoration Drama: An Anthology (Blackwell Anthologies)
Buy new: $74.95 / Used from: $21.45 Restoration playwrights know how to do comedy. I can't say the same for their tragedies, but the comedies will definitely tickle you in ways you never thought of.
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 | Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (Penguin Classics) by Samuel Richardson
Buy new: $17.16 / Used from: $4.70 You have to read the whole thing (not just the bad abridgment) to experience the devastating effect this novel has. It leaves Pamela in the dust. Pamela's so whiny... Clarissa is so tragic.
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 | Love in Excess by Eliza Haywood
Buy new: $10.84 / Used from: $9.76 Eliza Haywood wasn't on my list, but she's quite delightful and should be read by everyone.
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 | Oroonoko, The Rover, and Other Works (Penguin Classics) by Aphra Behn
Buy new: $8.57 / Used from: $4.75 I've read Aphra Behn's Oroonoko every year I've been in graduate school. The Fair Jilt and The Rover are great too.
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 | Fanny Hill: Or, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Penguin Classics) by John Cleland
Buy new: $8.50 / Used from: $1.60 There's always room for pornography...This text wasn't on my list either, but who can say they are truly an eighteenth-century scholar without reading this text?!
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 | Life of Johnson (Oxford World's Classics) by James Boswell
Buy used from: $3.00 James Boswell was a bit sleezy, but he was an amazing biographer. Life of Johnson is worth reading. Just don't let it get to Jamie's head...
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 | The Journey to the Western Islands Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (Penguin Classics) by Samuel Johnson
Buy new: $13.50 / Used from: $2.97 Okay, I love James Boswell. I think his Journal is more entertaining than Johnson's. There. I said it.
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 | The History of Rasselas: Prince of Abissinia (Oxford World's Classics) by Samuel Johnson
Buy used from: $2.56 One of my profs exclaimed how she hated this book... but it's a great read.
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 | The complete poetical works of William Collins, Thomas Gray, and Oliver Goldsmith. With biographical sketches and notes. Ed. by Epes Sargent. by Michigan Historical Reprint Series
Buy new: $26.99 / Used from: $29.11 All three poets are great. Thomas Gray is my personal favorite.
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 | Robinson Crusoe (Penguin Classics) by Daniel Defoe
Buy new: $8.00 / Used from: $0.36 Who could say no to limeades, goats, and cannibal footprints on your own deserted island???
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 | Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sanditon (Oxford World's Classics) by Jane Austen
Buy used from: $2.17 Should Jane Austen be included in a list of Eighteenth-Century writers? I think she should.
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 | Leviathan: With Selected Variants from the Latin Edition of 1668 by Thomas Hobbes
Buy new: $12.16 / Used from: $6.25 Everyone thinks they already know the Leviathan. Do they? Well, there's only one way to find out...
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 | An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke) by John Locke
Buy new: $35.51 / Used from: $14.98 You can use Locke for nearly any essay on anything in the eighteenth-century. He's not only useful for his discussions on empiricism, but his anecdotes and examples are witty and amusing.
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 | An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume
Buy new: $6.95 / Used from: $2.50 He can out-argue anyone on paper.
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 | The School for Scandal and Other Plays (Oxford World's Classics) by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Buy new: $9.32 / Used from: $0.98 The Rivals is my favorite play, but The School for Scandal and The Critic were worth reading. You could consider Sheridan the precursor to Wilde's wit... but I think Sheridan is witty enough on his own.
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 | She Stoops to Conquer (Dover Thrift Editions) by Oliver Goldsmith
Buy new: $2.00 / Used from: $0.01 One of my profs admitted that he was in love with Kate. I think that's a good reason to read this play.
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 | Vathek (Oxford World's Classics) by William Beckford
Buy used from: $1.97 Who wants to kick around a guy in the shape of a soccer ball?? I do!!! -- That's what the title of Vathek should have been.
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 | Moll Flanders (Norton Critical Editions) by Daniel Defoe
Buy new: $12.37 / Used from: $6.28 She's the lower class version of Roxana, which makes her more fun to read.
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 | The Tragedy Of Tragedies Or The Life And Death Of Tom Thumb The Great by Henry Fielding
Buy new: $14.04 / Used from: $6.94 This play made Samuel Johnson laugh heartily. I certainly guffawed.
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 | The Beggar's Opera (Penguin Classics) by John Gay
Buy new: $8.00 / Used from: $0.94 This is ril, ril funny. What's funnier? The movie adaptation with Roger Daltrey... That's right, the Who's Roger Daltrey.
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 | The Complete Poems by Earl of Rochester
Buy new: $16.77 / Used from: $5.70 The real Earl is cooler and wittier than Johnny Depp's depiction. If he's as hot as Johnny Depp, I'm sold!
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 | The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics) by Alexander Pope
Buy new: $18.95 / Used from: $2.82 Alexander Pope is the iPod of poetry. Although he uses the same forms as the classics, everything he does is pure gold.
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