Romantic, you should just find Tal's life and games, or Morphy. Morphy is theoretically the best, since he comes from the period. Tal just found tactical solutions to positional problems.
Classical: Books by Tarrasch
Hypermodern: My System by Nimzowitch.
Another great idea is to create a list on all the world championsships from 1886 to around 1950, and then find all the games annotated. There is probably alot on the internet. It will give a great understanding of the old champions.
what are some good books in algebreic notation in each catagory. i kinda want to start from the beginning (romantic)to get a complete understanding and then move on to see how it evolved (classical). my rating on here averages 1500 so i dont think i need any beginner books. i have pawn structure chess by soltis, chess fundamentals by capablanca and winning chess tactics by seirwann.