Of your list I have read THE PRINCE, MOBY DICK, 1984 (and Brave New world). Plus the Homer version of Ulysses (The Odyssey, The Illiad, and Virgil’s The Anead.
I don’t care much for Victorian novels. Silas Mariner broke me of that in school. I HATED that story. Dull,dull, dull!
I loved the Rafael Sabatini novels, the P C Wren (Beau Geste) trilogy, and the novels of C S Forrester (Beat to Quarters)trilogy. Reading these novels kept me sane in high school.
Even in seventh grade I figured out that having the main character fall into a convenient trance or fit whenever you needed to have something happen without his knowledge was pretty stupid - sort of like a creaky old trap door and a ghost in some second-rate touring company.
