Cimorene

I can't stand Sylvester for the embarrassment and the "but this wouldn't be a problem if you people hadn't acted dumb and could be solved by a conversation at various points" factor (and I couldn't the first time I read it, which was when I was like 12 or something, and I haven't read it since then, so I have no memory of any of these more meta factors about it. At all.) However, it's pretty remarkable to me for the fact that that plot has been ripped off so brazenly and so amazingly widely throughout the romance genre, especially Regencies, but not even limited to that. It's truly staggering. (My mom had a Giant Room full of paperback romances, 2/3 regencies, the kind you can buy at used bookstores by the bagful, which I used to read pretty frequently in between other books.)