The short answer: the classic literature box set to buy is the Penguin Clothbound Jane Austen set: seven cloth hardcovers in one box, and the most giftable set on the market. For a reader who already loves Austen, choose the Brontë Sisters Clothbound set. For the great epics, choose Robert Fagles’s Homer and Virgil in one gift box.
Which box set should you buy?
Clothbound box sets
These are the sets to choose when the box itself is part of the gift. Penguin’s Clothbound line uses Coralie Bickford-Smith’s designs, and listings describe cloth covers with foil stamping.
Jane Austen: The Complete Works, Penguin Clothbound
Seven hardcovers: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion and Love and Friendship, about 3,120 pages in all. It is the set most people mean when they ask for a beautiful classics box. One reviewer warns that a price sticker can mark the cloth, so peel it with care.
The Brontë Sisters, Penguin Clothbound
Four hardcovers: Charlotte’s Jane Eyre and Villette, Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Anne’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. It matches the Austen set on a shelf, so the two make a natural pair.
The Sherlock Holmes Collection, Arcturus Collector’s Classics
Six clothbound volumes with gold-foil embossing in a slipcase, 1,952 pages. The listing names four novels, from A Study in Scarlet to The Hound of the Baskervilles, and the story collections Adventures, Memoirs, Return and His Last Bow. If they want every story in one book instead, see the Knickerbocker edition in our hardcover guide.
Translated classics in a box
For translated books, the translator matters more than the box. These sets name theirs.
The Iliad, The Odyssey and The Aeneid, Robert Fagles
Fagles’s translations of all three founding epics, in Penguin’s Deluxe Editions, collected in a gift box, about 1,760 pages. Choose this over the two-book Homer box if they might read on to Virgil.
The Iliad and The Odyssey, Robert Fagles
The same Homer translations without the Aeneid, as a smaller boxed gift.
In Search of Lost Time, Modern Library
All six volumes of Proust in paperback, in the C. K. Scott Moncrieff translation as revised by Terence Kilmartin and D. J. Enright. Our Swann’s Way guide compares it with the newer Penguin translations.
The Works of Dostoevsky, Wordsworth Box Sets
Six books, about 3,755 pages: Crime and Punishment, Devils, The Idiot, The Karamazov Brothers, The House of the Dead with The Gambler, and Notes from Underground with other stories. It is the budget way to own the major novels. The listing does not name the translators, so if one translation matters to them, read our Crime and Punishment guide first.
Sets for younger readers and samplers
The Chronicles of Narnia, full-color box set
All seven books in paperback with Pauline Baynes’s illustrations in full color, from HarperCollins. It suits a child who is ready for chapter books, and an adult who grew up with them. For hardcover sets and the reading order, see our Narnia box set guide.
The Complete Anne of Green Gables, Tundra Books
All eight Anne books in paperback, in a collector’s box from Tundra. Choose this listing over the unbranded sets that share the title.
Little Black Classics Box Set, Penguin
Eighty short paperbacks that Penguin made for its 80th birthday, from Ovid and Virgil to Chekhov and Conrad: fiction, poetry, essays and maxims. It is the set for someone who likes to sample. Choose the Penguin listing, since another publisher sells a box with the same name.
Listen to it
A complete series is also the best value on Audible, because one credit can cover many books.
- Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection, read by Stephen Fry. All four novels and five story collections, about 72 hours, with nine introductions Fry wrote and read for Audible. Listen on Audible.
- The Chronicles of Narnia Complete Audio Collection. All seven books unabridged, 33 hours 45 minutes, read by Kenneth Branagh, Michael York, Alex Jennings, Lynn Redgrave, Derek Jacobi, Jeremy Northam and Patrick Stewart. Listen on Audible.
New Audible members can usually try a membership free. See Audible membership options.
Common questions
What is the best classic literature box set?
The Penguin Clothbound Jane Austen set for a gift. The Fagles Homer and Virgil set for a reader who wants the epics.
Are Penguin Clothbound box sets worth it?
Yes, if the look matters. The cloth covers and the box make them a gift on sight. If the reader only cares about the text, a paperback set does the same job.
Is there a Penguin Clothbound Sherlock Holmes box set?
We did not find one on Amazon. The Arcturus set is the clothbound boxed choice, and Penguin sells single Clothbound Holmes titles.
What box set suits someone who is new to classics?
The Little Black Classics box, because every book is short. The Sherlock Holmes set is the other easy start, since most of it is short stories.
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