The Greatest British Books of All Time

Click to learn how this list is calculated.

This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 759 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page.

View: List Grid Table
Filter by: Genres Dates Countries

Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
13 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
28 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
29 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë 1847 British English
31 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899 British English
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
35 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll 1865 British English
38 Great Expectations Charles Dickens 1860 British English
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
46 David Copperfield Charles Dickens 1849 British English
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
51 The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne 1759 British English
52 Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 British English
53 Dracula Bram Stoker 1897 British English
55 Animal Farm George Orwell 1945 British English
59 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier 1938 British English
61 The Golden Notebook Doris May Lessing 1962 British English
63 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry 1947 British English
65 Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift 1726 British English
69 Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe 1719 British English
71 Hamlet William Shakespeare 1600 British English
78 A Passage to India E. M. Forster 1924 British English
83 Emma Jane Austen 1815 British English
85 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford 1915 British English
95 Orlando Virginia Woolf 1928 British English
105 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray 1847 British English
110 The Waste Land T. S. Eliot 1922 British English
114 Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson 1883 British English
116 The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer 1400 British Middle english
117 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy 1891 British English
121 Bleak House Charles Dickens 1852 British English
127 Paradise Lost John Milton 1667 British English
129 First Folio William Shakespeare 1623 British English
131 King Lear William Shakespeare 1608 British English
134 Tom Jones Henry Fielding 1749 British English
136 The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame 1908 British English
137 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad 1900 British English
139 The Woman in White Wilkie Collins 1860 British English
141 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh 1945 British English
144 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
146 The Hobbit J. R. R. Tolkien 1937 British English
153 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess 1962 British English
155 Macbeth William Shakespeare 1606 British English
158 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 British English
164 The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle 1902 British English
165 Winnie the Pooh A. A. Milne 1926 British English
169 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark 1961 British, Scottish English
173 A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf 1929 British English
176 The End of the Affair Graham Greene 1951 British English
180 On the Origin of Species Charles Darwin 1859 British English
187 The Power and the Glory Graham Greene 1940 British English
188 A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens 1859 British English
190 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams 1979 British English
191 And Then There Were None Agatha Christie 1939 British English
192 Persuasion Jane Austen 1817 British English
196 Lady Chatterley's Lover D. H. Lawrence 1928 British English
198 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
204 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro 1989 British English
205 The Complete Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle 1927 British English
211 The Tempest William Shakespeare 1623 British English
212 Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler 1940 British German
216 A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens 1843 British English
218 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson 1886 British English
219 Brighton Rock Graham Greene 1938 British English
221 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
224 Watership Down Richard Adams 1972 British English
226 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
227 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 1920 British English
233 The Spy Who Came in From the Cold John le Carré 1963 British English
234 The Chronicles of Narnia C. S. Lewis 1950 British English
236 Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone J. K. Rowling 1997 British English
246 The Forsyte Saga John Galsworthy 1906 British English
247 Kim Rudyard Kipling 1901 British English
248 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
251 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Agatha Christie 1926 British English
252 The Waves Virginia Woolf 1931 British English
266 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro 2005 British English
277 The Pickwick Papers Charles Dickens 1836 British English
283 Nostromo Joseph Conrad 1904 British English
286 The Once and Future King T. H. White 1958 British English
287 Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy 1895 British English
289 A Room With a View E. M. Forster 1908 British English
292 Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham 1915 British English
294 The Time Machine H. G. Wells 1895 British English
297 Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott 1819 British English
300 The Life of Samuel Johnson James Boswell 1791 British English
319 The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money John Maynard Keynes 1936 British English
325 A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell 1951 British English
332 Clarissa Samuel Richardson 1748 British English
337 Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare 1597 British English
339 The Adventures of Oliver Twist Charles Dickens 1837 British English
343 The Sonnets William Shakespeare 1609 British English
344 The Thirty-Nine Steps John Buchan 1915 British English
345 Leviathan Thomas Hobbes 1651 British English
346 The Castle of Otranto Horace Walpole 1764 British English
351 Moll Flanders Daniel Defoe 1722 British English
352 The Vicar of Wakefield Oliver Goldsmith 1766 British English
358 The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy 1886 British English
372 War of the Worlds H. G. Wells 1898 British English
378 Melmoth the Wanderer Charles Robert Maturin 1820 British English
379 The Second World War Winston Churchill 1948 British English
381 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe C. S. Lewis 1950 British English
382 Parade's End Ford Madox Ford 1924 British English
387 Our Mutual Friend Charles Dickens 1864 British English
390 The Old Wives' Tale Arnold Bennett 1908 British English
392 Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis 1954 British English
393 The Moonstone Wilkie Collins 1868 British English
397 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel 2009 British English
399 His Dark Materials Philip Pullman 1995 British English
410 The Razor's Edge W. Somerset Maugham 1944 British English
414 The Mill on the Floss George Eliot 1860 British English
415 The Day of the Jackal Frederick Forsyth 1971 British English
419 The Daughter of Time Josephine Tey 1951 British English
423 Murder on the Orient Express Agatha Christie 1934 British English
425 Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen 1811 British English
427 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell 2004 British English
435 Scoop Evelyn Waugh 1938 British English
439 North and South Elizabeth Gaskell 1855 British English