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Cynics may suggest that a "literary classic" is a book that you want to have read, but not one that you actually want to read. We could probably all list at least half a dozen tile that fit that bracket: "Moby Dick", "War and Peace", "Bleak House", "Les Miserables", "Ulysses" and "Tess of the D'Urbevilles" fill my shelves with their imposing spines and my promise that one day I will get round to them.

But what makes these "classics" and why is it assumed that in order to be considered well-read you need to have ploughed through them and have an opinion on their merit?

There is no hard and fast definition of a classic. In its simplest form, a classic is a work that a large number of informed individuals have designated as such. This is a somewhat circular definition, because the literary cognoscenti will seek to produce written countless theses on "classical" texts, and with each new critique there comes a new raft of counter-theories and arguments, heightening the work's importance in literary circles.

A slightly more objective measure of classic status is to consider the work's importance and influence on subsequent works. One can trace the development of the novel from the early works of Richardson through Defoe, Dickens, Fitzgerald and the like and begin to draw links and connections between the structures adopted, the subjects tackled and styles employed. The first "detective" novels of Edgar Allen Poe, for example, may be designated classic by virtue of the fact that they spawn a whole genre.

These two definitions begin to overlap, because throughout the history of literature there are huge numbers of works that were popular at the time but have since dropped out of print. A classic therefore could also be defined as a work which has stood the test of time, is still read - and written about - today, and is likely to remain so into the future.

Notice that so far we have said nothing about the quality of the writing nor how enjoyable a read a book is. It is usually true that a book designated a classic will be well written, have something important to say and be an influence on subsequent works - but that doesn't mean that it will be an enjoyable read for everyone in the modern world. In fact, returning to our cynical definition, the reverse is usually assumed. Classics, by virtue of their longevity, will be written in a style that is less familiar to us today, they will tend to deal with values that we no longer hold and they can be a struggle for less experienced

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