Why 194 choices, and not 200 as in the title of the book? As we chose and wrote, and agreed and disagreed, we came across novels, often famous novels, which we did not appreciate: Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings for instance, science fiction and fantasy novels, and most historical novels. We read and rejected them knowing that even two omnivorous readers cannot represent every taste. Indignation, as well as pleasure, will, we hope, be among the first reactions to this book. We are well aware of our omissions, and want the reader to spot them. This is a book which requires action on the part of the reader, and so six novels have been chosen by the book-reading public and added to this book for all future editions.
We have chosen these novels for readers, readers of every age and taste, for those who have never read a novel before and for experts who want to quarrel with our choice; for school students and undergraduates, grandfathers, priests and nuns, Antarctic explorers. There are short novels and long novels, each kind providing a different kind of pleasure. A twelve-year-old could read Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, a ninety-year-old Anne Tyler’s Breathing Lessons and be very happy; Thomas Flanagan’s historical masterpiece The Year of the French and Thomas Harris’s startling Red Dragon offer other pleasures, as indeed do Hubert Selby Jr’s Last Exit to Brooklyn and William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch.
For surrealists, there is Henry Green and Ivy Compton-Burnett, for romantics Rosamond Lehmann, Louis de Bernières and Sybille Bedford, for wits Muriel Spark, J. G. Farrell, for murder fiends Agatha Christie and Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiaasen and Donna Tartt, Roy Heath and P. D. James, not to speak of Bret Easton Ellis; for Cold War fanatics there is Graham Greene and Don DeLillo; for lovers of Dickens and Eliot there is Mistry, Byatt, Smiley, Storey. There are many crime novels and thrillers. Some of the greatest writers of the period are represented by their short stories — V. S. Prichett, Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, Mary Lavin, Raymond Carver. Most exciting was the discovery that some novels loved first twenty or thirty years ago have improved with age. For instance, Olivia Manning’s Balkan trilogy, B. S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates, Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy, John O’Hara’s From the Terrace feel ready for reassessment. However good we thought them before, they seem finer now.
There were no quotas for men, women or race in choosing these books. The only constraint on our choice was the lack of availability of books from certain countries. Otherwise, we began and ended with open minds, and the books we chose are here because we loved them.
We both have memories from childhood and adolescence of being wrapped up in books. Books were a way of escaping the world, and also of entering it in a way that was more intense; a way of discovering feeling; a working out of how to live. Both of us were constantly reminded, as we did our research, of moments from childhood and adolescence — finding a book we hadn’t read or had forgotten, and after a few pages, suddenly being enclosed, cocooned, absorbed and totally involved in its world; finding ourselves anxious and dispossessed until we took it up again.
Books were happiness. We were brought up in places where reading was a passion and a joy. It still is for us. And so here they are: books which we offer wholeheartedly to the reader as you would give to a friend going on a journey; 194 examples of the best novels and stories in English published during the last half of the twentieth century.
How to use this book
All entries are alphabetical under the name of the author. Sometimes we have chosen a novel within a sequence, sometimes the sequence itself: the full work is detailed in both cases.
A note on this edition
Our readers, all over the world, sent us thousands of entries for the final six titles for this book. The four most popular are included here. In order of popularity they read as follows: Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong, Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain, John Fowles’ The Magus — which beat his French Lieutenant’s Woman by a whisker — and Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy.
We used our rights as authors to choose the last two: William Maxwell’s So Long, See You Tomorrow because it was a grave omission and authorial mistake of ours in the hardback edition, and Helen Garner’s The Children’s Bach because she topped the poll outside the world of British and American writers, who seem to dominate our readers’ tastes.
List of titles in order of publication
A Murder is Announced Agatha Christie
Nothing Henry Green
Power Without Glory Frank Hardy
The Grand Sophy Georgette Heyer
December Bride Sam Hanna Bell
My Cousin Rachel Daphne du Maurier
The West Pier Patrick Hamilton
The Ballad of the Sad Café Carson McCullers
A Dance to the Music of Time (1951–75) Anthony Powell
The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger
Invisible Man Ralph Ellison
The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway
The Natural Bernard Malamud
The Financial Expert R. K. Narayan
Wise Blood Flannery O’Connor
East of Eden John Steinbeck
The Sword of Honour Trilogy (1952–61) Evelyn Waugh
Private Life of an Indian Prince Mulk Raj Anand
Go Tell it on the Mountain James Baldwin
The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow
The Long Good-Bye Raymond Chandler
The Go-Between L. P. Hartley
The Echoing Grove Rosamond Lehmann
The Palm-Wine Drinkard Amos Tutuola
Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
Lord of the Flies William Golding
The Tortoise and the Hare Elizabeth Jenkins
The Flint Anchor Sylvia Townsend Warner
The Molloy Trilogy (1955–58) Samuel Beckett
The Recognitions William Gaddis
The Talented Mr Ripley Patricia Highsmith
Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
A Legacy Sybille Bedford
Train to Pakistan Khushwant Singh