Who is the best British novelist?

Let's have some fun and VOTE FOR THE GOAT

The Shakespeare bookclub meets again this Sunday 8th September 19.00 UK time to discuss Twelfth Night and Hamlet. Schedule here.

The next Western Canon salon is about Emma by Jane Austen on September 12th. Tickets here.

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Ok, let’s have some fun. Over the next few weeks, as autumn leaves begin to turn and fall, we’re going to debate who was the greatest novelist of them all. And vote for a GOAT—a Greatest Of All Time. Yes, it’s a silly thing to do, and no we won’t take it that seriously. Honestly, it’s fine to just make lists, pick winners, and then go home and not actually believe we are giving out rosettes. (I like lists: they are useful ways of finding and talking about authors.)

A few rules. UK novelists only, partly for ease of comparison, partly because that’s what I know best. (We can do another competition later on if we want to expand.) This isn’t only about who you love the most, but who is in fact the best novelist overall. So we’ll be arguing about technique, influence, range, status and so on, as well as personal taste. But this is inevitably a very personal competition. So be a critic but also be a fan.

If this is popular, we might run a zoom session or two as well.

I encourage you to argue the case for your favourites in the comments, on Notes, or your own Substacks. The more we talk about our candidates, the more we will encourage each other to read them.

Here’s my initial long list. (I’ll note where, to my chagrin, I’m badly read Yes, I am claiming Joyce, James, and Naipaul as British.)

1. Jonathan Swift. No point arguing about whether Gulliver’s Travels is a novel or not. Not including him would be silly.

2. Laurence Stern. Astonishingly modern innovations and so many of them.

3. Samuel Richardson. An obvious choice apart from the fact he seems quite unread. (I have only read Pamela and a small part of Sir Charles… maybe Clarissa should be our next book club topic.)

4. Daniel Defoe. Personally I find Robinson Crusoe unbearably dull, but he’s an undeniable contender.

5. Henry Fielding. Inventive, fun, persuasive. Tom Jones alone would be enough to get on the list.

6. Jane Austen. Duh. Call off the chase. She invented the modern novel.

7. Walter Scott. Like, no-one reads him now but he invented historical fiction and Ivanhoe is insanely good.

8. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley is awful stuff but Jane Eyre is sublime.

9. Emily Bronte. She could be on a list of poets too.

10. William Thackery. I never finished Vanity Fair. (It’s too long to sustain itself!) Does anyone read the others?

11. Wilkie Collins. I found it too dull to read but I hear others worship at the shrine.

12. Charles Dickens. Second only to Shakespeare for inventiveness? Bleak House is worth whole shelves of other writers.

13. George Eliot. Has anyone ever equalled her ability to write about ideas? And oh my god that prose.

14. Anthony Trollope. The weakest contender? (Though I always want to read more...)

15. Henry James. Maybe he’s too niche but The Golden Bowl and some of the short fiction would on their own be a pillar of English literature. (I could do with patching up here.)

16. Thomas Hardy. I can’t read Tess again, but that’s a sign of his power. Surely a top contender.

17. James Joyce. Yes, I know he’s Irish, but he wrote Ulysses while Ireland was part of the UK, so I’ll take it.

18. Joseph Conrad. Also somewhat unread beyond Heart of Darkness. But informed opinion ranks him very highly.

19. Virginia Woolf. Yes, she’s irritating sometimes. Yes, the more experimental books aren’t much fun. But Orlando and Mrs Dalloway are lively, vivid, intelligent books that have made a lasting mark.

20. D.H. Lawrence. I only know the stories but they get their own special place.

21. Evelyn Waugh. A dark horse pick, but he has great range.

22. J.R.R. Tolkien. An obvious contender. If you don’t think so, read Tom Shippey.

23. V.S. Naipual. A clear genius. I haven’t read many, but Mrs Biswas, In A Free State and A Bend in the River are all exceptional. (Oxford educated, talked passionately about how the UK, and London, was the only place in the world he could have become a writer.)

24. Iris Murdoch. Unlikely to win, but few writers of the twentieth century show her intelligence and feeling.

25. Kazuo Ishiguro. Contender for The Remains of the Day alone. We’ll overlook The Buried Giant…

Below the paywall, paid subscribers can VOTE FOR THE GOAT and make their case for their favourite. You can argue for changes to the list too. After this round of voting we’ll move to some elimination rounds…

To get us started, here is a Google form where you can vote. (Substack won’t let me do more than five names in one poll...) I’ll then whittle down a shortlist and we’ll have a few more rounds of run-off voting. At each stage, there’s will be debate in the comments. NB. you can vote for as many people as you want. We’ll do run-offs later.

No doubt many of you think there are many names missing. Forster, Orwell, Golding and so on. I like those authors too. But the list has the names who seem most significant to me, the ones who changed, influenced, and invented the most. If you think the list should be changed, vote “other”, leave a new name, and make your case in the comments.