BBC selection of the top 100 British novels

The BBC's selection of 100 major British novels ( english The 100 greatest British novels ) was published in December, 2015. It is the result of a survey of 82 non-British literary critics and scholars, who were each asked to name what they considered to be the ten most important British novels.

The aim of the survey was to obtain a global assessment, as the British novel had influenced this literary form worldwide for centuries. Selectors from continental Europe and the USA as well as Australia, Africa, Asia and the Middle East include Claiborne Smith ( Kirkus Reviews ), Sam Sack ( The Wall Street Journal ), Stephen Romei and Geordie Williamson (both literary critics of the Australian ), Fintan O'Toole ( The Irish Times ), Mark Medley ( Toronto Globe and Mail ), and Mary Ann Gwinn ( Seattle Times ). The literary scholars surveyed include Terry Castle, Morris Dickstein , Michael Gorra, Carsten Jensen , Amitava Kumar, Rohan Maitzen, Geoffrey O'Brien, Nilanjana Roy and Benjamin Taylor. A total of 228 novels were named.

Middlemarch , the novel that was voted number one, was named as one of the top ten British novels by 42 percent of voters. The most frequently named authors on this list are Jane Austen , Virginia Woolf, and Charles Dickens , each with four works. EM Forster , Thomas Hardy and Graham Greene are each represented with three novels.

List of the most frequent mentions

space	Original title	German title	author	Publishing year	Awards and Notes
1	Middlemarch	Middlemarch	George Eliot	1874
2	To the lighthouse	The ride to the lighthouse	Virginia Woolf	1927
3	Mrs. Dalloway	Mrs. Dalloway	Virginia Woolf	1925	Michael Cunningham's novel The Hours , which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999, depicts the influence of Mrs. Dalloway on women of three different generations.
4th	Great Expectations	Great expectations	Charles Dickens	1861
5	Jane Eyre	Jane Eyre	Charlotte Brontë	1847
6th	Bleak House	Bleak House	Charles Dickens	1853
7th	Wuthering Heights	Storm height	Emily Brontë	1847
8th	David Copperfield	David Copperfield	Charles Dickens	1850
9	Frankenstein	Frankenstein	Mary Shelley	1818
10	Vanity Fair	Vanity Fair	William Makepeace Thackeray	1848
11	Pride and Prejudice	Pride and Prejudice	Jane Austen	1813
12	Nineteen Eighty-Four	1984	George Orwell	1949
13	The Good Soldier	The saddest story	Ford Madox Ford	1915
14th	Clarissa	Clarissa	Samuel Richardson	1748
15th	Atonement	Apology	Ian McEwan	2001
16	The waves	The waves	Virginia Woolf	1931
17th	Howard's End	See you in Howards End	Edward Morgan Forster	1910
18th	The Remains of the Day	What was left of the day	Kazuo Ishiguro	1989	Booker Prize
19th	Emma	Emma	Jane Austen	1815
20th	Persuasion	persuasion	Jane Austen	1817
21st	Heart of Darkness	Heart of darkness	Joseph Conrad	1899
22nd	The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling	Tom Jones: The Story of a Foundling	Henry Fielding	1749
23	Jude the Obscure	In the dark	Thomas Hardy	1895
24	The Golden Notebook	The golden notebook	Doris Lessing	1962	Nobel Prize in Literature
25th	White Teeth	show teeth	Zadie Smith	2000	James Tait Black Memorial Prize Whitbread First Novel Award
26th	The Lord of the Rings	Lord of the Rings	JRR Tolkien	1954
27	Robinson Crusoe	Robinson Crusoe	Daniel Defoe	1719
28	Villette	Villette	Charlotte Brontë	1853
29	Brick Lane	Brick Lane	Monica Ali	2003
30th	Minor Flanders	Minor Flanders	Daniel Defoe	1722
31	The end of the affair	The end of an affair	Graham Greene	1951
32	A room with a view	room with view	Edward Morgan Forster	1908
33	The Wind in the Willows	The wind in the willows	Kenneth Grahame	1908
34	Never let me go	Everything we had to give	Kazuo Ishiguro	2005
35	Remainder	8½ million	Tom McCarthy	2005	Believer Book Award
36	A Dance to the Music of Time	A dance to the music of the time	Anthony Powell	1952-1975	12 volumes
37	Decline and Fall	Decay and decline	Evelyn Waugh	1928
38	The Passion	Desire	Jeanette Winterson	1987	John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
39	The Sense of an Ending	From the end of a story	Julian Barnes	2011	Man Booker Prize
40	Alice's Adventure in Wonderland	Alice in Wonderland	Lewis Carroll	1865
41	Dombey and Son	Dombey and son	Charles Dickens	1860
42	Brighton Rock	At the abyss of life	Graham Greene	1938
43	The Swimming Pool Library	The swimming pool library	Alan Hollinghurst	1988
44	Wolf Hall	Wolves	Hilary coat	2009	Man Booker Prize Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction National Book Critics Circle Award
45	The Little Stranger	The visitor	Sarah Waters	2009
46	Midnight's Children	Midnight children	Salman Rushdie	1980
47	The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman	Life and views of Tristram Shandy, gentleman	Laurence Stars	1759
48	Lucky Jim	Lucky for Jim	Kingsley Amis	1954
49	Possessions	Obsessed	AS Byatt	1990
50	A Passage to India	In search of India	Edward Morgan Forster	1924
51	Tess of the d'Urbervilles	Tess from the d'Urbervilles	Thomas Hardy	1891
52	New Grub Street	Line money	George Gissing	1891
53	Wide Sargasso Sea	The vast Sargasso Sea	Jean Rhys	1966
54	NW	London NW	Zadie Smith	2012
55	Gulliver's Travels	Gulliver's Travels	Jonathan Swift	1726
56	Oranges are not the only fruit	Oranges aren't the only fruit	Jeanette Winterson	1985	Whitbread Book Award
57	Parade's end	No more parades	Ford Madox Ford	1924-1928
58	Loving	The Butler	Henry Green	1945
59	The Line of Beauty	The beauty line	Alan Hollinghurst	2004	Booker Prize
60	Sons and Lovers	Sons and lovers	DH Lawrence	1913
61	The Sea, the Sea	The sea, the sea	Iris Murdoch	1978	Booker Prize
62	Animal Farm	Animal farm	George Orwell	1945
63	The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie	The heyday of Miss Jean Brodie	Muriel Spark	1961
64	The Way We Live Now	-	Anthony Trollope	1875
65	Orlando	Orlando	Virginia Woolf	1928
66	Sense and Sensibility	Mind and feeling	Jane Austen	1811
67	Crash	Crash	JG Ballard	1973
68	A clockwork orange	Clockwork Orange	Anthony Burgess	1962
69	Nostromo	Nostromo	Joseph Conrad	1904
70	Daniel Deronda	Daniel Deronda	George Eliot	1876
71	Old Filth	An impeccable man	Jane Gardam	2004
72	The Heart of the Matter	The heart of all things	Graham Greene	1948
73	The blue flower	The blue flower	Penelope Fitzgerald	1995	National Book Critics Circle Award
74	The Mayor of Casterbridge	The Mayor of Casterbridge	Thomas Hardy	1886
75	Women in Love	Loving women	DH Lawrence	1920
76	Small Islands	An English kind of luck	Andrea Levy	2004	Orange Prize for Fiction Whitbread Book Award Commonwealth Writers' Prize
77	Of human bondage	Man's bondage	W. Somerset Maugham	1915
78	A house for Mr Biswas	A house for Mr Biswas	VS Naipaul	1961	Nobel Prize in Literature
79	His Dark Materials	His Dark Materials	Philip Pullman	1995-2000	Novel series
80	Excellent women	Excellent women	Barbara Pym	1952
81	The Jewel in the Crown	The jewel in the crown	Paul Scott	1966
82	The Patrick Melrose Novels	-	Edward St Aubyn	1992-2012	Novel series
83	Barchester Towers	The towers of Barchester	Anthony Trollope	1857
84	scoop	scoop	Evelyn Waugh	1938
85	Regeneration trilogy		Pat Barker	1991-1995	Novel series: No man's land, The eye in the door, The street of the spirits
86	A legacy	A legacy	Sybille Bedford	1956
87	The Old Wives' Tale	Constance and Sophia or The Story of the Old Ladies	Arnold Bennett	1908
88	The Death of the Heart	Cold hearts	Elizabeth Bowen	1938
89	The Horse's Mouth	The crux of the matter	Joyce Cary	1944
90	The Woman in White	The woman in white	Wilkie Collins	1860
91	The Forsyte Saga	The Forsyte saga	John Galsworthy	1922	Nobel Prize in Literature
92	Cold Comfort Farm	Cold Comfort Farm	Stella Gibbons	1932
93	Lord of the Flies	Lord of the flies	William Golding	1954	Nobel Prize in Literature
94	The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner	The private memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner	James Hogg	1824
95	The Buddha of Suburbia	The Buddha from the suburbs	Hanif Kureishi	1990	Whitbread Book Award
96	Memoirs of a Survivor	A survivor's memoir	Doris Lessing	1974
97	The Chronicles of Narnia	The chronicles of Narnia	CS Lewis	1949-1954
98	Under the volcano	Under the volcano	Malcolm Lowry	1947
99	There but for the	It would have been me the same	Ali Smith	2011
100	The Code of the Woosters	Old nobility does not rust	PG Wodehouse	1937