I think the best novel I ever read was “Great Expectations”. We had to read it in 10th grade English Lit.
Not a thing in it to keep one from letting their child read it. It certainly is not necessary to fill the story with sex and violence or at least both described in detail rather than left to the imagination.
The description of sex and Violence are not bad in of them self. The Bible has quite a bit of both.
Try a true classic Pilgrim’s Progress
That is a good one and a favorite of mine.. i have to say, my boys have been fed the classics from the start... first the “real” fairy tales, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lewis Carroll, Carlo Collodi, to Greek and Norse mythology, Gilgamesh, Homer and the Greeks, the Romans on down to Hugo, Dickens, the Brontes, C.S. Lewis, Tozer, Tolkein, London, Hemingway... we have had wonderful discussions and many teachable moments paralleling these stories along side scripture...