List :: 100 Novels Everyone Should Read by Telegraph

  • Nineteen Eighty-Four

    #21

    Nineteen Eighty-Four

    by George Orwell

    (69 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 3

    946 points

    "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

  • A Passage to India

    #22

    A Passage to India

    by E. M. Forster

    (8 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 24

    469 points

    "Except for the Marabar caves--and they are twenty miles off--the city of Chrandrapore presents nothing extraordinary."

  • Madame Bovary

    #23

    Madame Bovary

    by Gustave Flaubert

    (11 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 48

    322 points

    "Nous étions à l'Etude, quand le Proviseur entra suivi d'un "nouveau" habillé en bourgeois et d'un garçon de classe qui portait un grand pupitre.We were in study hall when the headmaster walked in,..."

  • Ulysses

    #24

    Ulysses

    by James Joyce

    (13 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 4

    925 points

    "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed."

  • The Moonstone

    #25

    The Moonstone

    by Wilkie Collins

    (3 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 278

    76 points

    "In the first part of Robinson Crusoe, at page one hundred and twenty-nine, you will find it thus written: 'Now I saw, though too late, The Folly of beginning a Work before we count the Cost, and..."

  • Cranford

    #26

    Cranford

    by Elizabeth Gaskell

    (3 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 288

    75 points

    "In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women."

  • Frankenstein

    #27

    Frankenstein

    by Mary Shelley

    (31 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 84

    219 points

    "You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.The event on which this fiction is founded has been..."

  • Tom Jones

    #28

    Tom Jones

    by Henry Fielding

    (3 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 68

    255 points

    "An author ought to consider himself, not as a gentleman who gives a private or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a public ordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their money."

  • Life

    #29

    Life

    by Georges Perec

    (3 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 152

    130 points

    " PreambleTo begin with, the art of jigsaw puzzles seems of little substance....PART ONE, CHAPTER ONEYes, it could begin this way, right here, just like that, in a rather slow and ponderous way, in..."

  • Atonement

    #30

    Atonement

    by Ian McEwan

    (10 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 111

    176 points

    "The play – for which Briony had designed posters, programs and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of a folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crepe paper – was..."