In the OP, I used "classics" as before TV for a reason.
I was there, "before TV", and other than listening to radio adventure stories like Little Orphan Annie, the only way that was available to venture outside my little world, was to "be read to" or early on at age 7 to become a "reader".
I shall forever be thankful for my 2nd grade teacher, who taught a love of reading, and a very large part of my misspent youth and young adulthood was spent in reading... often from 2 to 5 books a week. Many books read under the covers with a flashlight, when I was supposed to be sleeping.
It was a time when experience was created in imagination. Nothing to go by but a few illustrations in the book. Reading The Brothers Karamazov was not only a reading, but an emotional experience, and reading that at age 10 or so was very formative.
In reviewing lists of "best classics", makes me wonder how I could have possibly read so many. Virtually all of Poe, Dickens, Mellville, and literally hundreds of others.
About 10 years ago, while doing a lot of biking, turned from reading to listening to books on tape, and now, with eyes that tire easily, have gone back to this. Librivox, for the most part, and auto reads of Gutenberg (though not really satisfactory).
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Before TV... forced imagination. A happy part of life.