DRACULA [1897]
Interesting as it was one of the first [if not THE first] novels to be written in epistolary format [ie. composed of a series of extracts from journals, letters, newspaper articles and even wax cylinder recordings, rather than narrated by a single person]. So there's a nice contrast there with works of today which might use a similar style, but compose the narrative from emails, text messages, TV reports, etc.
As a novel, it's a very mixed bag. The beginning and ending are classic gothic horror --very action packed and exciting and feel quite modern. However, there are vast tracts in the middle which are hard going, having been severely beaten with the 'Victorian Melodrama' stick; women faint at the drop of a hat, men fall to their knees, beating their breasts, crying and wailing their devotion in front of all present and everyone eulogises at length on 'good vs. evil'.
ROBINSON CRUSOE [1719]
I didn't realise this one was that old, til I looked it up!
Another cracking story but, to an even worse extent than Dracula, suffers from the attitudes of its day. Crusoe is such a pious, pompous self-obsessed prig that, whenever I read the book, I end up hating him and wishing he'd suffer some painful testicle-crushing accident, to wipe the sanctimonious expression off his fizzer.
In spite of being holed up in a cave with barrels of rum, sacks of tobacco, piles of guns and gunpowder and more food and livestock than the average farm, Crusoe continually whinges about his terrible lot in life. [Try being cast ashore with only an ice skate and a netball for company, or confined to barracks with only a couple of bottles of hand sanitiser to drink --you pampered pillock!]
And, of course, when he meets Friday, he treats him with the kind of masterly benevolence you might show a favourite dog; change your name, change your culture, change your religion, change your language. Good boy! Now you're fit to be a slave for an Englishman. [and, even the addition of a live-in servant to his already well-appointed cave, doesn't stop Crusoe endlessly bemoaning the terrible fate life has given him].
TREASURE ISLAND [1883]
Another great adventure story. It's got pirates and buried treasure. What's not to like?!
As with the previous two I've mentioned, Jim Hawkins, the hero character is annoyingly pious and good. However, in the case of Treasure Island, these niggles are more than rectified by the introduction of a great supporting cast of villains including Billy Bones, Blind Pew and, of course Long John Silver.
I don't know if Robert Louis Stevenson intended this, or I'm putting our contemporary preference for 'flawed heroes' onto what he wrote. But, unusually for novels of that era the 'baddies' in Treasure Island are portrayed as rounded individuals with likeable aspects to their personalities, rather than being cast as one-dimensional pantomime villains. I think it gives the book a feel that's more modern than its vintage would lead you to expect.