I was watching an American literature professor on YouTube giving a lecture about Charles Dickens. He said Dickens was regarded as Britain's 2nd greatest author after Shakespeare, or maybe Austen was 2nd, but it was pretty close. That made me wonder who our 4th and 5th would be. I thought maybe George Orwell was the most significant author from the C20th, but I could not think who else would be up there. Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh did not seem in the same class. I posted this on a British literature website (at least it ended in .co.uk). Someone posted he would place Virginia Woolf in the top 5. Virginia Woolf! I have only read Mrs Dalloway and the only thing I can say in its favour is that it is short. I would as rather read one of my computer programming books for entertainment value. If you want to know why there are not many stream-of-consciousness novels then read Mrs Dalloway. If you want to read a better stream-of-consciousness book, read Trainspotting. However, it appears I am being ignorant, because someone polled 82 international book critics outside the UK for their choices, and Virginia Woolf had three books in the top 25, including To The Lighthouse at number 2 and Mrs Dalloway at number 3.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/story/2...british-novels