This Pride and Prejudice love story is all about addressing your own issues before you can get involved with someone else. Elizabeth and Darcy both have a lot to work on (we’re talking about the ‘pride’ and the ‘prejudice’ in the title, which they both have loads of). But inspite of these early issues, in fact maybe because of their willingness to improve their own qualities (with help from the other) they become a love for the ages, although we are happy to keep their story confined to Austen’s original, rather than the abundant sequels by other authors.

This love is basically about chasing each other around the playground, until you become exhausted and realize you may be chasing each other for a whole other reason. Beatrice and Benedick are by no means the only couple like this, but this Much Ado About Nothing couple do it the best and they are our favourites. So they’re technically not from a book – we’ll give Shakespeare a pass on that one. They will fight until they laugh, and then kiss and make up at the end of it.

Romeo and Juliet gave us the ultimate in desperate, devoted, love. That’s not the bad kind of desperate, just the kind that leaves you dead at the end of the story. You know the trend of instant love, where characters meet and “oh my god let’s get married.” They are the poster kids for romance, and not to mention a story that has lasted through the ages. Romeo and Juliet would give up their lives for each other, despite only having known each other for around three days. Not that we condone that sort of behaviour, but it was a rather romantic (if not over-dramatic) sentiment.

This couples from Wuthering Heights begun conventionally enough, progressing from childhood playmates and sweethearts to a lady too fine for her unkempt suitor. Then it becomes a little more complicated, with both marrying other people, and then there’s the obstacle of Catherine’s death and subsequent haunting of Wuthering Heights. Catherine and Heathcliff are not the only romantic couple who fit into this category, there is also a certain Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester, but we like their twisted story best.

The Princess Bride gives us an everlasting romance, despite the fact that our heroine both verbally abuses our hero and pushes him into a gorge, and that he kidnaps her and is “mostly dead”, and that they are both chased around by a prince with a ridiculous name. But Westley has clearly loved Buttercup all of his life, willing to indure any kind of pain for her, and Buttercup would give herself to a loveless marriage in order to save Westley’s life. It’s all very complicated, but above all it is a story of a somewhat twisted fairytale, which ends happily ever after. Probably.

Sure they don’t wear outfits from the 1800s or chase each other around windy moors, but Gatsby essentially obsessed over Daisy until he managed to steal, cheat, and buy his way to the top of society. This love is mostly unrequited on Gatby’s side – yes Daisy shows him some reciprocal feelings, but not enough to sacrifice her world for him in the way that he stole his for her. These Fitzgerald romantics exist in a world of whirlwind parties and minimal consequences, until they end up in fairly tragic circumstances, like many other couples on our list.