Wow. I don't think I can even name 18 Wells and Verne novels. Based on your other reading interests, I would recommend you check out Stephen Baxter. He's written authorized sequels to
Time Machine and
War of the Worlds (
The Time Ships and
Massacre of Mankind). Baxter has degrees in mathematics and engineering, so you often find discussions of real world science or math in his books. The books often feature notes at the end to refer you to the real world articles. I would say Baxter is like a modern H.G. Wells. Arthur C. Clarke is another similar author with strong science and literary skills. They also collaborated on a few books.
Or for an alternative, try
Frankenstein.
You may already be familiar with (or have read) all those, but if you are I hope you'll just appreciate the suggestions and maybe they will spark some other ideas.
If you're curious about what sort of things they used to assign, we read
Great Expectations,
Romeo and Juliet,
Macbeth,
Hamlet,
Grapes of Wrath,
Brave New World and a lot of short stories and other things I forget since it was 20 years ago.
Shakespeare is quite entertaining once you realize they're all filled with raunchy humor no matter how tragic. And Shakespeare actually invented some modern words which is cool from a vocabulary standpoint.
