Valentine’s Day may have been and gone. But we don’t see why love should only be in the air on the 14th. From the bickering Montagues and Capulets to the impossible love between a priest and a country girl from the Australian outback, today we’ve got a list of our top ten romantic couples from fiction. We hope you enjoy them.

1 Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

While psychologists today would denounce the relationship as unhealthily co-dependent, Romeo and Juliet really did believe that their love was worth more than life itself. Ignore the fact that at the play’s opening Romeo was mooning over someone called Rosaline, Juliet was the only one, honest. Well, she was certainly the last.

2 Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy by Jane Austen

She’s fiery and smart, he’s proud and aloof, yet somehow these unlikely-lovers put aside their differences and find true love. It’s not just the relationship, it’s the journey that these two wonderful characters go on that makes Pride and Prejudice so enduring, with each realising their faults and acknowledging the good they had failed to see in the other.

3 Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff by Emily Bronte

Crikey these two are intense. At turns vicious, cruel and passionate their love extends way beyond the grave. And at times it goes into the grave itself; one of Wuthering Heights’ most shocking and romantic scenes involves Heathcliff exhuming Cathy’s body to hold one last time. He also has the sexton remove one of the sides of her coffin, so when he is buried next to her their bodies can mingle and be absorbed back into the landscape they loved so much.

4 Henry and Clare by Audrey Niffengger

The Time Traveler’s Wife tells the story of Henry and Clare, who met when she was six and he was 36 and got married when she was 22 and he was 30. An impossible set up, but Henry suffers from a rare condition which causes his genetic clock to reset, propelling him forwards and backwards in time. Their struggle to protect their love and lead a normal life is so intense and moving; you’ll need the tissues for this one.

5 Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester by Charlotte Bronte

She is the plain yet fiery governess. He is the philandering and bitter lord of the manor. They fall in love. They get married. Cue the mad ex-wife locked in the attic. Jane Eyre will send most people’s minds screaming back to high school English classes. Yet, there is a world of romance, deep sensuality and self-discovery within these pages that you just don’t see as a schoolie. Pick up a copy as an adult and you’ll soon see what we mean.

6 Edward Cullen and Bella Swan by Stephanie Meyer

It would be hard to compile this list and leave out the biggest fictional romance this side of the 21st century. Love them or hate them, their love-at-first-sight and beyond-the-grave passion is impossible to ignore.

7 Meggie Cleary and Father Ralph by Colleen McCulough

A generation-spanning epic of a novel, The Thorn Birds charts the rise of the Cleary family from simple working folk to landed-gentry in the Australian outback. Central to the novel is the impossible love between Meggie and Ralph, an ambitious priest banished to work in the outback for insulting a superior. The heart-rending inevitability of Ralph’s choice and the family’s struggle against the elements makes The Thorn Birds much more than a straightforward romance story.

8 Noah and Allie by Nicholas Sparks

The Notebook tells the story of enduring love in the face of hardship, scandal and old age. We won’t tell you too much so as not to give the game away. It’s not a literary great, but if you’re in the market for having your heart strings mercilessly plucked it’s a great tear-jerker.

9 Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler by Margaret Mitchell

The movie’s final line is what’s perhaps most famous about Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, but get yourself a copy of the book and be prepared to be blown away. Scarlett and Rhett belong together, everyone know’s it. Everyone apart from Scarlett O’Hara that is. She marries elsewhere to find happiness, failing to see what the rest of the south can spot a mile off; a tragically satisfying masterpiece.

10 Cecilia Tallis and Robbie Turner by Ian McEwan

McEwan’s 2001 masterpiece Atonement explores an innocent childhood mistake that ruins the future happiness of Cecilia and Robbie. It’s a heart-rending story of what might have been, of one person’s search for redemption and the corrosive nature of secrets.

About the author: Claire writes for Clickinks, who distribute ink cartridges across the US. Claire enjoys reading and writing in her spare time.