The golden British Literature - help!

[Ich bin]

Literature peole!

Please help!

You see, I'm fond of English literature and I'm going to read anymore British writers. But there are too many of them. I'm counting on your help. :brickwall

Let us write a list of golden library of British literature. It will be very usefull not only for me. Send 10 positions "Writer. - Book.", any of them, from 17th to 21th century. It can be any genre.

And I think We should not write the following comrades:
W Shakespear
JRR Tolkien
JK Rowling
W Scott
A Cristie
A Conan-Doyle
They don't need to be introduced. The others - welcome to the list.

[BSturdy]

Sir Richard Brinsley Sheridan (Try reading 'The Rivals') - Shelley etc...his ancestors are alive and well

JG Ballard
George Orwell
Peter Cook

Do some homework, Son

[mike-eustace]

some of my reccomendations


Oscar Wilde - one of my favourite ever books is 'the portrait of dorian gray' (actually irish, i know!)

Hardy, return of the native is a brilliant read.

Any Dickens whatasoever.

Lewis Caroll - perhaps. it's not to everybodys taste

Enjoy

[Doctor Boogaloo]

Dickens: 'David Copperfield', 'Great Expecations', 'Oliver Twist', 'Bleak House'.

Wilkie Collins: 'The Moonstone', 'Armadale', 'The Woman in White', 'No Name'.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: 'Uncle Silas'.

George Eliot: 'The Mill on the Floss', 'Silas Marner', 'Middlemarch'.

George Meredith: 'The Ordeal of Richard Feverel', 'The Egoist'.

Emily Bronte: 'Wuthering Heights'.

Oscar Wilde, Tennyson, Shelley, Charles Lamb.

-- Cheers.

[BSturdy]

Daphne Du Maurier 'The Blue Lenses'
DH Lawrence 'The Rainbow'
Aldous Huxley 'The Island'
Anthony Burgess 'The Wanting Seed'
E M Forster 'The Longest Journey'
Graham Greene 'The Ministry of Fear'

Unfortunately I think this is meaningless proposition unless someone is going to organise the thread into a list somehow. There are many english writers, literary even.

[WriterAtTheSea]

HELLO! What about Jane Austen? Not to mention...C.

[Idril]

Some very good names there. :thumbs_up I would like to add John Galsworthy and Anthony Trollope, two of my favorite British authors.

[omegaxx]

Funny how the 19th century dominated yet again=)

[mtpspur]

C. S. Lewis--Scewtape Letters
C. S. Forester--Any Hornblower book
H. Rider Haggard--She or King Solomon's Mines
Adam Hall/Elleston Trevor--Quiller Memorandum/Flight of the Phoenix
John Le Carre--Spy WHo Came in from the Cold
Bernard Cornwell--Any Sharpe novel

[Bysshe]

Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited, A Handful of Dust

[Virgil]

E.M Forster, A Passage To India, Howards End

Almost anything by Joseph Conrad, but especially, Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, Lord Jim.

D.H. Lawrence, In addition to The Rainbow Sons and Lovers, Womem In Love, Lady Chatterly's Lover

Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse

Ford Maddox Ford, The Good Soldier

Rudyard Kipling, Kim

These come to mind. If I think of more I'll come back.

[JBI]

Thomas Hardy, John Donne, John Milton. Add those three. There is no golden age, since people are still writing books.

[JBI]

Funny how the 19th century dominated yet again=)

In the 19th century literature became easier to obtain. Because of this advancement, there was a lot more literature being processed at the time than ever before. Since the question is the Golden age, we assume that we are dealing with 'classics'. Therefore, since there was more literature being produced at those times than ever before, and we are dealing with classics, it is only natural that we find ourselves dealing with the 19th century. Some writers mentioned are from before that time, but there are not nearly as many pre-19th century authors as there are 19th century authors.

[omegaxx]

In the 19th century literature became easier to obtain. Because of this advancement, there was a lot more literature being processed at the time than ever before. Since the question is the Golden age, we assume that we are dealing with 'classics'. Therefore, since there was more literature being produced at those times than ever before, and we are dealing with classics, it is only natural that we find ourselves dealing with the 19th century. Some writers mentioned are from before that time, but there are not nearly as many pre-19th century authors as there are 19th century authors.

Don't you find it funny how we don't have much 20th century stuff though?
I'm perfectly fine with it. I really can't stand Modernist prose--not the English/Irish stuff anyways. But Romantic and Victorian prose rocks!

[aeroport]

Why do we stop at the 17th century? We need Chaucer!
Spencer - The Faerie Queen
Thackeray - Vanity Fair
Sterne - Tristram Shandy
Defoe - Moll Flanders
Bunyan - The Pilgrim's Progress
Fielding - Tom Jones

[Virgil]

Why do we stop at the 17th century? We need Chaucer!

Very true, Jamesian. For some reason I was only thinking novels. Of course, then Shakespeare, Milton, Donne, Chaucer, Swift, etc.

[aeroport]

Indeed. But I think most of those are actually after 1600. Chaucer stands out, quite oddly, somewhere in the 1400s. Mallory as well.

[Virgil]

Absolutely Mallory. In my opinion, one of the most under rated writer in English.

[PeterL]

Jonathan Swift: "A Tale of a Tub", Gulliver's Travels"

[sumalan monica]

Some research is strongly recommended.Literature means books,homework and study.Do not give up.Follow the path,read as many as you can.

[andave_ya]

As it happens, my absolute favorite author that I can't stop suggesting to anyone is Dorothy L. Sayers. I should warn you that it is not classical literature; she's a Christian apologist, translator of works into English, and then....

There are her MYSTERIES! I love those! Starring the aristocratic detective Lord Peter Wimsey and sometimes, his wife Lady Harriet. Brilliant! Tip-top! Absolutely stunning! And now I'll shut up!:D :) :lol:

[Bethan]

Stephen Fry ;)

[Stieg]

Hmm,

Robert Aickman - "The Wine-Dark Sea", "The Unsettled Dust", "Painted Devils"

Ramsey Campbell - "Alone with the Horrors"

Walter de la Mare - "The Return"

Montague Rhodes James - England master ghost story teller, frightening apparitions and elementals that IME have a uniquely vivid eerie descriptively said stereoscopic quality. "Casting the Runes"; "Number 13"; "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad"; countless others etc.

Algernon Blackwood - Weird fiction's premier writers, never a dull stinker at the top of his game, no one can approach him, "The Wendigo", "The Willows", "The Centaur", "The Man Whom The Trees Loved", "Ancient Sorceries" (Val Lewton's The Cat People is based on this story), etc.

Oliver Onions - "The Beckoning Fair One". Nuff said.

William Hope Hodgson - "The Voice of the Night", "The Ghost Pirates", etc. His weird fiction is a mixture of sci-fi, fantasy, and scary sea stories.

Excerpt:


'I was peering down. The thing seemed to be rising out of the depths. It was taking shape. As I realised what the shape was, a queer, cold funk took me.

'"See," said Tammy. "It's just like the shadow of a ship!"

'And it was. The shadow of a ship rising out of the unexplored immensity beneath our keel.'



Bwahahaaha!

Arthur Machen was Welsh and Sheridan Le Fanu was Irish, not sure if they both count but would include them too.

[aeroport]

Stephen Fry ;)

Has he written anything? If so, I would be quite interested...

At any rate, the Jeeves books belong here.

[Banville]

At any rate, the Jeeves books belong here.

Amen! (Though I'd say PGW in general, not just Jeeves.)

Austen, especially Persuasion
Dickens especially Bleak House & Our Mutual Friend
Evelyn Waugh
Beryl Bainbridge

[angeles177]

charlotte bronte, Jane Eyre

[Jackson Richardson]

This is giving Ich Bin far, far too much. It would be better if Ich Bin gave some idea of what they liked already in their (his/her) own language.

I'd put forward Nancy Mitford Love in a Cold Climate and Saki's short stories (particularly Shredni Vashtar, but they are not everyone's cup of tea (well know British drink).

Basically I'd divide books into two camps: Jane Austen (cool, ironic, detached) and Charlotte Bronte (passionate). I'm Jane Austen through and through, although I love Charles Dickens who is definitely in the Bronte camp, but with an irrepressible sense of humour (well know British spelling).

For something very English and humourous, try P G Wodehouse, although it may totally mystify.

[Calidore]

This is giving Ich Bin far, far too much. It would be better if Ich Bin gave some idea of what they liked already in their (his/her) own language.


Since Ich Bin only posted three times nearly seven years ago, don't hold your breath. :)

[Jackson Richardson]

I saw this under "New Posts" I jumped in. Another newbie not used to looking at the date first.

I suspect in the meantime Ich Bin has given up on British literature and is re-reading Proust or Der Zauberberg with pleasure.

[WICKES]

Literature peole!

Please help!

You see, I'm fond of English literature and I'm going to read anymore British writers. But there are too many of them. I'm counting on your help. :brickwall

Let us write a list of golden library of British literature. It will be very usefull not only for me. Send 10 positions "Writer. - Book.", any of them, from 17th to 21th century. It can be any genre.

Great novels by British writers in the 20th century:

Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness (ok, he was born in Poland)

Aldous Huxley: Chrome Yellow (his best in my opinion), Brave New World

George Orwell: 1984, Animal Farm, Homage to Catalonia

JRR Tolkein: Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit

D H Lawrence: Sons and Lovers, Women in Love, The Rainbow

C S Lewis: All the Narnia books, Out of the Silent Planet

H G Wells: The Time Machine, War of the Worlds

PG Wodehouse: The Jeeves books

Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse, Mrs Dalloway

Evelyn Waugh: Decline and Fall, Brideshead Revisited, Scoop, The Sword of Honour Trilogy

Kingsley Amis: Lucky Jim

Roald Dahl's children's books



C S Lewis was Irish, but he was a Protestant who spent 90% of his life in England, where he died

JRR Tolkein was NOT South African as some people claim- he was born there to British parents and left when he was an infant. He spent the next 80 years in England (and fought at the battle of the Somme as a British officer) where he died.

[kelby_lake]

We have a thread about "The Great British Novel" that might help. It's mainly English novels :)