--- title: Valentine's Day 2016: Classic Love Stories to Read description: From Shakespeare's signature star-crossed lovers to contemporary romances like "Brokeback Mountain" canonical: https://time.com/4212388/classic-love-stories-valentines-day/ author: Sarah Begley article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-12T21:54:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:00:26.965Z article:section: Ideas og:title: 17 Classic Love Stories to Curl Up With on Valentine's Day og:description: From Shakespeare's signature star-crossed lovers to contemporary romances og:url: https://time.com/4212388/classic-love-stories-valentines-day/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 17 Classic Love Stories to Curl Up With on Valentine's Day twitter:description: From Shakespeare's signature star-crossed lovers to contemporary romances twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # 17 Classic Love Stories to Curl Up With on Valentine's Day by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Feb 12, 2016 9:54 PM UTC by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Feb 12, 2016 9:54 PM UTC For as long as there’s been storytelling, there have been love stories. Here are some of the best to hunker down with on Feb. 14, whether or not you have a [Valentine](http://time.com/4212620/valentines-day-2016-ideas-gifts-celebrate/) to read to. ### _Maurice_  W. W. Norton & Company [E.M. Forster’s](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393310329/?tag=timecom-20) story of two men finding love in Edwardian England—complete with a happy ending—was so ahead of its time, it wasn’t published until after he died, nearly six decades after it was written. ### _Love in the Time of Cholera_  Vintage Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza put their love on the back burner for decades while life interferes, but they reunite in old age in [Gabriel García Márquez’s](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0307389731/?tag=timecom-20) novel. ### _Their Eyes Were Watching God_  Harper Perennial Modern Classics [Zora Neale Hurston’s](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061120065/?tag=timecom-20) landmark novel takes Janie Crawford through two unhappy relationships before she finally meets Tea Cake—a man who brings his own problems, but who finally gives her the kind of love she’s been longing for. ### _Pride and Prejudice_  Anchor No list of romances would be complete without the story of [Jane Austen’s](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0307950905/?tag=timecom-20) most beguiling couple, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. ### _The English Patient_  Vintage Books [Michael Ondaatje](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0679745203/?tag=timecom-20) makes infidelity look romantic in his WWII story of star-crossed lovers. ### _High Fidelity_  Riverhead Books Record shop owner Rob Fleming reminisces over his worst breakups before reuniting and committing to his most recent ex, Laura, in [Nick Hornby’s](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1573225517/?tag=timecom-20) ode to pop culture. ### _Brokeback Mountain_  Scribner [Annie Proulx’s](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0743275306/?tag=timecom-20) tale of forbidden love between two shepherds in Wyoming gave us one of the most iconic lines in contemporary romance: “I wish I knew how to quit you.” ### _Romeo and Juliet_  Folger Shakespeare Library Sure, things don’t end so well for Verona’s most notorious couple, but [Shakespeare’s](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0743477111/?tag=timecom-20) lovebird protagonists have become bywords for romance. ### _The Price of Salt_  Dover Publications Therese Belivet and Carol Aird find unlikely love, despite strict societal pressures to remain apart, in [Patricia Highsmith’s](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0486800296/?tag=timecom-20) groundbreaking novel, an LGBT standard. ### _Wuthering Heights_  Penguin Classics What Catherine and Heathcliff’s love lacks in idealism, it makes up for in passion in [Emily Brontë’s](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0141040351/?tag=timecom-20) iconic novel of the English moors. ### _The Princess Bride_  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt The love between Buttercup and Westley spawns an improbable adventure in [William Goldman’s](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0544173767/?tag=timecom-20) beloved fantasy. ### _Atonement_  Anchor A passionate beginning to a relationship between Cecilia Tallis and Robbie Turner turns bitter after Cecilia’s sister intervenes out of ignorance, leading to miserable results for everyone in [Ian McEwan’s](http://www.amazon.com/dp/038572179X/?tag=timecom-20) metafictional account of cursed love. ### _The Hottest State_  Little, Brown and Company William and Sarah get hot and heavy fast in [Ethan Hawke’s](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0316540838/?tag=timecom-20) depiction of the wonder and torture of young love. ### _Americanah_  Anchor Young lovers Ifemelu and Obinze separate and lead vastly different lives away from their homeland of Nigeria before finally reuniting in [Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0307455920/?tag=timecom-20) meditation on race and identity. ### _The Remains of the Day_  Vintage International An English butler named Stevens reflects on a lifetime of unrequited love for his former colleague, Miss Kenton, in [Kazuo Ishiguro’s](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0679731725/?tag=timecom-20) masterpiece. ### _The Time Traveler’s Wife_  Harcourt [Audrey Niffenegger’s](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1476764832//?tag=timecom-20) sci-fi bestseller follows Clare Anne Abshire and her husband Henry DeTamble, a man born with a genetic disorder that makes him time through travel unexpectedly. They overcome the unpredictability of their situation to make a life together in the past, present and future. ### _The Odyssey_  Penguin Classics [Homer](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0141192445/?tag=timecom-20) puts his hero Odysseus through countless trials and mishaps on his way to reunite with his wife, Penelope, who remains faithful to him through his decades-long absence. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4212388/classic-love-stories-valentines-day/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4212388/classic-love-stories-valentines-day/"},"headline":"17 Classic Love Stories to Curl Up With on Valentine's Day","datePublished":"2016-02-12T21:54:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:00:26.965Z","description":"From Shakespeare's signature star-crossed lovers to contemporary romances like \"Brokeback Mountain\"","url":"https://time.com/4212388/classic-love-stories-valentines-day/","keywords":["Books"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sarah Begley","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4212388/classic-love-stories-valentines-day/","name":"17 Classic Love Stories to Curl Up With on Valentine's Day"}}]}] ```