Test: Anthony Burgess List of the 99 Greatest Modern Novels 1940-1983

Anthony Burgess’ list of the best novels in the English language from 1940-1983.

Burgess is British, so there is a bias here in favor of British novelists and against Irish, Canadian, Australian, and to a lesser extent, American novelists. I am not as up on British novelists as I am on American novelists, so this is probably part of the problem here in a lot of these books I am not familiar with.

The first yes/no statement is whether I have heard of the book. The second yes/no statement is whether I have read the book.

This is how I did. See how you can do. You don’t have to tally them all up like I did here. Feel free to discuss any of the listed books or authors below if you are familiar with them or heave read them.

1940 Party Going, Henry Green YES NO After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, Aldous Huxley YES NO Finnegans Wake, James Joyce YES NO (OWN, PART) At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O’Brien YES NO

1941 The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene YES NO For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway YES YES (FORMER OWN) Strangers and Brothers (to 1970), C. P. Snow NO NO The Aerodrome, Rex Warner YES NO

1944 The Horse’s Mouth, Joyce Cary YES NO The Razor’s Edge, W. Somerset Maugham YES NO

1945 Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh YES NO

1946 Titus Groan, Mervyn Peake YES NO

1947 The Victim, Saul Bellow YES NO Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry YES NO

1948 The Heart of the Matter, Graham Greene YES NO The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer YES NO No Highway, Nevil Shute YES NO

1949 The Heat of the Day, Elizabeth Bowen YES NO Ape and Essence, Aldous Huxley YES NO Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell YES YES (FORMER OWN) The Body, William Sansom NO NO

1950 Scenes from Provincial Life, William Cooper NO NO The Disenchanted, Budd Schulberg YES NO (OWN)

1951 A Dance to the Music of Time (to 1975), Anthony Powell YES NO The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger YES YES (FORMER OWN) A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight (to 1969), Henry Williamson NO NO The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk YES NO

1952 Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison YES NO The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway YES YES (FORMER OWN) Wise Blood, Flannery O’Connor YES NO Sword of Honor (to 1961), Evelyn Waugh NO NO

1953 The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler YES YES (FORMER OWN) The Groves of Academe, Mary McCarthy YES NO

1954 Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis YES YES (FORMER OWN)

1957 Room at the Top, John Braine NO NO The Alexandria Quartet (to 1960), Lawrence Durrell YES NO The London Novels (to 1960), Colin MacInnes NO NO The Assistant, Bernard Malamud YES NO

1958 The Bell,, Iris Murdoch YES NO Saturday Night and Sunday Morning Alan Sillitoe NO NO The Once and Future King, T. H. White YES (OWN, PART)

1959 The Mansion, William Faulkner YES NO Goldfinger, Ian Fleming YES NO

1960 Facial Justice, L. P. Hartley NO NO The Balkan Trilogy (to 1965), Olivia Manning YES NO

1961 The Mighty and Their Fall, Ivy Compton-Burnett NO NO Catch-22 Joseph Heller, YES YES (FORMER OWN) The Fox in the Attic, Richard Hughes NO NO Riders in the Chariot, Patrick White NO NO The Old Men at the Zoo, Angus Wilson NO NO

1962 Another Country, James Baldwin YES NO An Error of Judgement, Pamela Hansford Johnson NO NO Island, Aldous Huxley YES NO The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing YES YES (FORMER OWN) Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov YES NO

1963 The Girls of Slender Means, Muriel Spark YES NO

1964 The Spire, William Golding YES NO Heartland, Wilson Harris NO NO A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood YES NO The Defense, Vladimir Nabokov YES NO Late Call, Angus Wilson NO NO

1965 The Lockwood Concern, John O’Hara NO NO Cocksure, Mordecai Richler NO NO The Mandelbaum Gate, Muriel Spark YES NO

1966 A Man of the People, Chinua Achebe YES NO The Anti-Death League, Kingsley Amis YES NO Giles Goat-Boy, John Barth YES NO The Late Bourgeois World, Nadine Gordimer NO NO The Last Gentleman, Walker Percy NO NO

1967 The Vendor of Sweets, R. K. Narayan YES NO

1968 The Image Men, J. B. Priestley NO NO Pavane, Keith Roberts NO NO

1969 The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles YES NO Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth YES YES (FORMER OWN)

1970 Bomber, Len Deighton YES NO

1973 Sweet Dreams, Michael Frayn NO NO Gravity’s Rainbow Thomas Pynchon YES YES (OWN)

1975 Humboldt’s Gift, Saul Bellow YES YES (FORMER OWN) The History Man, Malcolm Bradbury NO NO

1976 The Doctor’s Wife, Brian Moore NO NO Falstaff, Robert Nye NO NO

1977 How To Save Your Own Life, Erica Jong YES NO Farewell Companions, James Plunkett NO NO Staying On, Paul Scott NO NO

1978 The Coup, John Updike YES NO

1979 The Unlimited Dream Company, J. G. Ballard NO NO Dubin’s Lives, Bernard Malamud YES NO A Bend in the River, V. S. Naipaul YES NO Sophie’s Choice, William Styron YES NO

1980 Life in the West, Brian Aldiss NO NO Riddley Walker, Russell Hoban YES NO How Far Can You Go?, David Lodge NO NO A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole YES YES (FORMER OWN)

1981 Lanark, Alasdair Gray YES NO Darconville’s Cat, Alexander Theroux YES NO The Mosquito Coast, Paul Theroux YES NO (MOVIE) Creation, Gore Vidal NO NO

1982 The Rebel Angels, Robertson Davies YES NO

1983 Ancient Evenings, Norman Mailer YES NO

I am familiar with 66 out of the 99 books or 2/3 of them. It doesn’t seem real great, but I bet if you asked 100 people, my score would be better than almost all of them.

So I’m not familiar with 1/3 of the best books from 1935-1985, which is a bit pathetic. But if you asked 100 people again, my score is probably better than almost all of them.

I have read 12 out of the 99 books or 1

But I also read 25 novels, partly read four others and 10 cases of short story collections and nonfiction written by the authors above that did not make the list. So I read 39 books that did not make the list by the authors above.

In quite a few cases, I am familiar with the author but not his books or at least not that particular book. There seem to be 89 authors listed above of those 99 books. The numbers don’t line up because some writers have more than one work up there. I have heard of 74 of the top 89 novelists of 1940-1983, or 8

For some of these authors, I have read some of their works but not others.

William Faulkner Light in August

Aldous Huxley Brave New World The Doors of Perception

James Joyce short stuff Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man Ulysses (few pages)

Ernest Hemingway short stuff The Sun Also Rises Across the River and into the Trees

George Orwell short stuff

J. D. Salinger Nine Stories Franny and Zooey Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters

Flannery O’Connor short stuff

Evelyn Waugh The Loved One

Kingsley Amis Jake’s Thing

Ian Fleming You Only Live Twice (few pages)

Joseph Heller Something Happened

James Baldwin short stuff

William Golding Lord of the Flies

Vladimir Nabokov short stuff Lolita Bend Sinister

Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart (few pages)

John Barth short stuff The Sot-Weed Factor

Thomas Pynchon short stuff V. The Crying of Lot 49 Slow Learner Vineland

Brian Moore The Green Berets

Erica Jong Fear of Flying

John Updike short stuff Hugging the Shore To the End of Time (50 pages)

Norman Mailer short stuff Cities of the Night An American Dream

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5 thoughts on “Test: Anthony Burgess List of the 99 Greatest Modern Novels 1940-1983”

  1. My scores. I’m adding another value: “read online.” Either Kindle or an eBook version.

    Heard: 17 – I may have heard a few other names and may have seen them at a bookstore but I don’t recall them as easily.
    Read the physical edition: 6 – This list includes “own currently” and “formerly owned”
    Rad online: 5
    Total read = 6 + 5 = 11

    I am familiar with 66 out of the 99 books or 2/3 of them. It doesn’t seem real great, but I bet if you asked 100 people, my score would be better than almost all of them.

    17 out of 99 for me– I think it’s an impressive score considering that I don’t read that much fiction really.

    have read 12 out of the 99 books or 12% of them. I’ve read 12% of the best books from 1935-1985. Pathetic. But still it’s probably better than 95% of the people you ask. So I haven’t read 88% of these books. However, I have read a 2% out of those 88% but only a few pages in each. In one case, I saw the movie but didn’t read the book.

    11 out of 99, almost at your level, yeah. Some of these books I read multiple times; Sophie’s Choice is my favorite, Hemingway, Heartland, R K Narayan

    Only 2 Indian authors in the list of 99 is a bit of a disappointment. This list is fucking rigged – I must protest!

    R K Narayan’s “The Guide” is a fiction masterpiece which should have been there way ahead of “The Vendor of Sweets” although that’s pretty fantastic too. R K Narayan was a real genius.

    Why didn’t Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children” (1981) make the list?


    Out of the list you proposed, I completely agree with “An American Dream”, “Lolita” (it should have been included), “Lord of the Flies” and each and everyone of the James Joyce novels. Have read or partially read all of them.


    Here is my final tally based on the Anthony Burgess list. Merry Christmas!
    1940
    Finnegans Wake, James Joyce YES YES (READ ONLINE)

    1941
    For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway YES YES (OWN CURRENTLY)

    1944
    The Razor’s Edge, W. Somerset Maugham YES NO

    1949
    Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell YES YES (READ ONLINE)

    1950
    The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger YES YES (OWN CURRENTLY)

    1952
    The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway YES YES (OWN CURRENTLY)

    1959
    Goldfinger, Ian Fleming YES NO (FORMERLY OWNED)

    1961
    The Fox in the Attic, Richard Hughes YES NO

    1964
    Heartland, Wilson Harris YES YES (READ ONLINE)

    1965
    The Mandelbaum Gate, Muriel Spark YES NO

    1966
    A Man of the People, Chinua Achebe YES YES (READ ONLINE)

    1967
    The Vendor of Sweets, R. K. Narayan YES YES (FORMERLY OWNED) – Only Indian novelist worth including, damn that racist Brit who created this list!

    1969
    Philip Roth YES NO

    1976
    Falstaff, Robert Nye YES NO

    1979
    A Bend in the River, V. S. Naipaul YES YES (OWN CURRENTLY) – So, another Indian writer he did include although I’m not a big Naipaul fan, I acknowledge his genius.

    Sophie’s Choice, William Styron YES YES (READ ONLINE) – This is my favorite book in this entire list. You should check it out.

    1980
    A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole YES NO

    1. The Joyce novels were written before 1940, so they were too early to make the list. I am glad you liked American Dream, Lolita and Lord of the Flies! Three great books.

      I’d really like to read

      R K Narayan, “The Vendor of Sweets”
      Salman Rushdie* “Midnight’s Children”
      V. S. Naipaul, “A Bend in the River”
      William Styron, “Sophie’s Choice”
      W. Somerset Maugham, “The Razor’s Edge”

      Ian Fleming, “Goldfinger”
      Chinua Achebe, “A Man of the People”

      Fuck the “Wake.” I’ve had that book on shelf for 35 years now and I still haven’t read it. I’ve read a few pages. To me, it’s unreadable.

      *Read half of “The Satanic Verses.”

      1. Wilson Harris, The author is Guyanese. The novel is set in the Caribbean country which was a British colony. It basically gives you a Caribbean perspective of the dark, mysterious forces of nature that affect the lives of human beings.

        Deep down it’s about Black pride stuff…there’s are subtle themes which talk about the presence of melanin in human skin as a way to communicate with God…how White people are evil etc. I’m sure you’re going to love it.

        For me, it was more like an introduction to the beautiful Caribbean country. It’s like taking a mini-vacation to the lush green forests and beautiful sandy white beaches.

        You can find it on Kindle for sure.

        1. Sounds similar to the Green Frontier TV series. The lush green jungles of the Amazon appeal to me. Just woke from a dream pondering why bald eagles favor North America? Well, they favor Alaska specifically. The last remnant of old untapped forrests that was the early North American frontier.

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