The British newspaper the Telegram has announced today the top 50 greatest novels ever written from a poll conducted at Play.com, a UK based online retailer of books, DVDs and music. Toping the list is Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird, followed by JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen’s Emma is also included on the list at number 25.
Pride and Prejudice has topped many of the recent polls, solidifying its value with readers and critics. It is also interesting to note as you peruse the list of 50 top choices, that many of the novels have been made into hit movies, proving that Hollywood recognizes the value of books as a meter of the public’s interest.
TOP 50 GREATEST NOVELS OF ALL TIME 2008 POLL WINNERS
1. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
2. Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S Lewis
4. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
5. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
6. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
7. Animal Farm - George Orwell
8. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
9. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - JK Rowling
10. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
11. The Time Travellers Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
12. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
13. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kasey
14. Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
15. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
16. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
17. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
18. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime - Mark Haddon
19. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
20. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
21. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
22. Sons and Lovers - DH Lawrence
23. Anna Kareninia - Leo Tolstoy
24. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
25. Emma - Jane Austen
26. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
27. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
28. My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult
29. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
30. A Passage to India - E.M Forster
31. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
32. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
33. Atonement - Ian McEwan
34. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
35. In Search of Lost Time - Marcel Proust
36. Middlemarch - George Eliot
37. White Teeth - Zadie Smith
38. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
39. It - Stephen King
40. Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott
41. Vanity Fair - William Thackeray
42. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
43. The Horse Whisperer - Nicholas Evans
44. Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
45. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
46. Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
47. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
48. Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twin
49. Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome
50. The Island - Victoria Hislop
What would be on your top 50 list of the greatest novels ever written? My top 5 entries would include
1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
3. Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
4. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
5. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
Enter your choice of the top five greatest novels ever written as a comment between June 17th - 22nd to be eligible to win a copy of the newly redesigned edition of Pride and Prejudice, by Oxford World Classics. A winner will be announced on Monday, June 23rd. Be creative, and happy reading to all.
Posted by Laurel Ann, Austenprose
