Classic English Literature

Since Five Books was set up in 2009, we've interviewed more than 2,000 experts on all manner of subjects. Here's our roundup of the ten classic British novels that have been recommended most often, starting with Middlemarch, described by Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grownup people".

Jane Austen was a British novelist who died in 1817 at the age of just 41, but whose books have stood the test of time. In the 21st century, her novels continue to be not only studied in school but also read for pleasure. We asked the distinguished Austen scholar Patricia Meyer Spacks to talk us through the best Jane Austen novels and explain what it is that makes them special.

Journalist Robert McCrum spent two years selecting the best novels ever written in English. Here he narrows it down to just five: a perfect introduction to the best fiction the English language has to offer.

Virginia Woolf was long dismissed as a 'minor modernist' but now stands as one of the giants of 20th century literature. Her biographer, Hermione Lee, talks us through the novels, essays, and diaries of Virginia Woolf.

Three-quarters of a century on from its initial publication, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is just as resonant in today's era of misinformation and fake news as it was in the incipient Cold War era. D J Taylor, author of a prizewinning biography of Orwell, takes us through the extraordinary impact of the author's fiction and reportage.

Oscar Wilde cultivated an image of himself as an idle genius, dashing off masterpieces with a lazy brilliance. But below the glittering linguistic surface of his works, suggests Sos Eltis, lies an anarchic politics and a phenomenal analysis of power.

Shakespearean scholar Emma Smith picks her five favourite plays by the Bard, and controversially argues that not only are some of his plays just too long, but also that the most moving moments in Shakespeare's oeuvre are where we might not expect them

Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales not only revolutionized English poetry—they're also extremely funny and moving. Oxford Professor Marion Turner, who has written the first full-length biography of Chaucer in a generation, tells us about the extraordinary man who wrote them and why we should all read the Canterbury Tales. 

Anthony Trollope compared being a writer to being a cobbler and wrote highly readable novels that nonetheless exposed all our human foibles. Bestselling children’s author and Trollope enthusiast Francesca Simon explains her fascination with Anthony Trollope and recommends some of her favourite books by the Victorian novelist.

In the second of a Five Books series marking the 400th year since the world's most popular playwright's death, eminent Shakespearean René Weis picks his five favourite plays, and explains why King Lear will change your life.