The 100 Best Novels of All Time, In accordance with 750,000 Readers within the UK (2003)

Within the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry, the learn­ers of Europe went mad for epis­to­lary nov­els. France had, to call essentially the most sen­sa­tion­al examination­ples, Mon­tesquieu’s Let­tres per­sanes, Rousseau’s Julie, and Lac­los’ Les Liaisons dan­gereuses; Ger­many, Goethe’s Die Lei­den des jun­gen Werther and Hölder­lin’s Hype­r­i­on. The Eng­lish proved espe­cial­ly insa­tiable when it got here to long-form sto­ries com­posed whole­ly out of let­ters: quickly after its pub­li­ca­tion in 1740, Samuel Richard­son’s Pamela — by some reck­on­ings, the primary actual Eng­lish nov­el — grew into an all-encom­cross­ing cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­non, which Richard­son him­self out­did eight years lat­er with Claris­sa. Alas, when the BBC sur­veyed the pub­lic two and three-quar­ter cen­turies lat­er to discourage­mine essentially the most beloved nov­el within the U.Ok., nei­ther of these books even made the highest 100.

With the pos­si­ble excep­tions of Bram Stok­er’s Drac­u­la (#104) and Mary Shel­ley’s Franken­stein (#171) — two works of 9­teenth-cen­tu­ry hor­ror that make use of a vari­ety of tex­tu­al kinds, let­ters includ­ed — the rank­ings professional­duced by “The Massive Learn” includ­ed prac­ti­cal­ly no epis­to­lary nov­els. (Nor did eigh­teenth-cen­tu­ry works of any oth­er sort make the lower.) What hap­pened to the lit­er­ary style that had as soon as induced such a nation­al craze? For one factor, Jane Austen hap­pened: nov­els like Pleasure and Prej­u­cube, Emma, and Per­sua­sion revealed simply how wealthy a sto­ry might turn into when its nar­ra­tion breaks away from the pen of any char­ac­ter in par­tic­u­lar, achieve­ing the abil­i­ty to know extra about them than they learn about them­selves. Not for noth­ing did all three of these books per­type properly on The Massive Learn the guess­ter a part of 200 years after they got here out; Pleasure and Prej­u­cube even got here in at num­ber two.

The highest spot was tak­en by J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings tril­o­gy: an below­stand­in a position out­come, giv­en not simply its ambi­tion but in addition its mas­sive and endur­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty and influ­ence. Nonetheless, one does gained­der if Peter Jack­son’s block­buster movie adap­ta­tions, launched within the years lead­ing as much as the ballot, might need had some­factor to do with it. Sim­i­lar sus­pi­cions adhere to the likes of Cap­tain Corel­li’s Man­dolin (#19), Amer­i­can Psy­cho (#185), The Seaside (#103), and Brid­get Jones’s Diary (#75), all of which professional­vid­ed the idea for main movement pic­tures across the flip of the mil­len­ni­um. Umber­to Eco’s The Title of the Rose, considered one of a scat­ter­ing of trans­lat­ed nov­els to make the checklist, additionally acquired the Hol­ly­wooden deal with­ment, however it’s value remem­ber­ing that the e book itself offered so properly that its Eng­lish trans­la­tor might use his roy­al­ties to construct an addi­tion to his Tus­can vil­la referred to as the “Eco Cham­ber.”

Other than Austen, the oth­er nov­el­ists with mul­ti­ple books on The Massive Learn­’s prime 100 embody Stephen King, who additionally has three; Thomas Hardy, with 4; and Charles Dick­ens, with sev­en. These are, in any case, a few of the nov­el­ists for adults. The abid­ing British appre­ci­a­tion for chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture reveals within the excessive rank­ings of Roald Dahl, who secured an awesome many votes with even much less­er works like The Twits and Dan­ny, the Cham­pi­on of the World; J. Ok. Rowl­ing, who would have ben­e­match­ed from the peak of Har­ry Pot­ter mania in any case; and the professional­lif­ic Dame Jacque­line Wil­son, whose 4­teen nov­els on the checklist place her sec­ond solely to Sir Ter­ry Pratch­et­t’s fif­teen. It may very well be that his com­ic-fan­ta­sy sen­si­bil­i­ty, sat­u­rat­ed with each the out­landish and the mun­dane, res­onat­ed distinctive­ly with the British psy­che. Or, as Pratch­ett him­self says in the BBC’s Massive Learn tele­vi­sion broad­forged, “it might simply be that I’m fairly pop­u­lar.”

In whole, greater than 750,000 learn­ers par­tic­i­pat­ed within the Massive Learn ballot. Discover learn­ers’ prime 100 books under:

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Based mostly in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His tasks embody the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the e book The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll by way of Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social web­work for­mer­ly referred to as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.