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Okay, I'll take the plunge! I have two nominations, very different from each other:
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. From Kobo:
When an accident knocks mechanic Hank Morgan from nineteenth-century Connecticut back to sixth-century Camelot, he finds himself in a new position of power. Armed with his knowledge of the future, Hank sets off on a quest to transform his destiny and prevent King Arthur’s death. With his trademark dark humor, Mark Twain crafts a critique of human nature that transcends the centuries between King Arthur, Hank Morgan, and today.
Howards End by E M Forster. From Kobo:
Howards End is a novel by E. M. Forster, first published in 1910, which tells a story of social and familial relations in turn-of-the-century England.
Howards End is considered by some to be Forster's masterpiece. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Howards End 38th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
The book is about three families in England at the beginning of the 20th century: the Wilcoxes, rich capitalists with a fortune made in the Colonies; the half-German Schlegel siblings (Margaret, Tibby, and Helen), who have much in common with the real-life Bloomsbury Group; and the Basts, a struggling couple in the lower-middle class. The Schlegel sisters try to help the poor Basts and try to make the Wilcoxes less prejudiced.
The Schlegels frequently encounter the Wilcoxes. The youngest, Helen, is for a short period intensely attracted to the younger Wilcox brother, Paul; each rejects the other for his or her own reasons. The eldest, Margaret, becomes friends with Paul's mother, Ruth Wilcox. Ruth's most prized personal possession is her family house at Howards End. She wishes that Margaret could live there, as she feels that it might be in good hands with her. Ruth's own husband and children do not value the house and its rich history, because such abstractions, while being very dear to Margaret, are lost to them. As Ruth is terminally ill, and Margaret and her family are about to be evicted from their London home by a developer, Ruth bequeaths the cottage to Margaret in a handwritten note delivered to her husband from the nursing home where she has died, causing great consternation among the Wilcoxes. Mrs Wilcox's widowed husband, Henry, and his children burn the note without telling Margaret about her inheritance. However, over the course of several years, Margaret becomes friends with Henry Wilcox and eventually marries him. The more free-spirited Margaret tries to get Henry to open up more, to little effect. Henry's elder son Charles and his wife try to keep Margaret from taking possession of Howards End.
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