If you want to study literature just for aesthetic pleasure, read anything you like. But if you want to understand it too, go through "A Short History of English Literature" by Ifor Evans to get how financial slump, social deterioration, industrialism and other factors influenced the literature of that era. Different characteristics of different Era will also be known to you.

Dont start with Gulliver's Travel. Its too lengthy - a social satire written symbolically. You wont be able to keep your interest till the end. Start with simple and interesting stuff like Hardy's and Austen's Novels.

To understand "Animal Farm", one must know about Russian Revolution, its slogans and the Stalin Era.