Have you ever tried the "Thursday Next" series by Jasper Fforde? It's a crazy fantasy/satire/whatever mix with time travel and such, a world where famous book characters are really alive and behave not at all how we know them and much more weird stuff.
"The Eyre Affair" is the first part. It's good to know Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre", but my boyfriend also loved it, although he knows no classics at all.