Ten Novels and Their Authors

I went through a phase of devouring Maugham's short story collections and his novels are very good too. So when I saw this book in a church book sale I thought it would be interesting to see what he thought were the best books.

Maugham's choices are: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, Old Man Goriot by Honore de Balzac, Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, The Red and the Black by Stendhal, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Not surprisingly, all of these works appear on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list. Maugham says in his introduction that "No novel is show more perfect. Of the ten I have chosen there is not one with which you cannot in some particular find fault...." He also sets out in this introduction what he considers goes into a great novel: a widely interesting theme, be coherent and persuasive, the end should be the natural consequence of the beginning, the characters should be individual and their actions should be consistent with their character, speech should also be consistent with their character, the writing should be simple enough for anyone of ordinary education to read, and, finally but most importantly, a novel should be entertaining. Those sound like great guidelines for any aspiring writer.

Of the ten novels Maugham chose, I have read five and they are, in order of my enjoyment: David Copperfield, Pride and Prejudice, Madame Bovary, War and Peace, and Wuthering Heights. I really disliked Wuthering Heights and I would far rather have seen Jane Eyre by another Bronte sister on the list. I'm hoping to read Tom Jones soon but I'm not sure I'm interested in any of the others. However, this book is a great introduction to these novels and especially to their authors.

Maugham discusses the inherent subjectivity of such lists. He posits that if fifty well-read people were to sit down and make a list of the 100 best novels there would probably appear between 200 and 300 individual books. I think that is probably true but I still find it interesting to read such lists and compare them to my own assessments.

Maugham wrote these essays in the late 1940s and that may explain why only one book (Moby Dick) from the 20th century appears in his choices. It would be interesting to know, if he was writing now in the 21st century, which books he would choose. Surely some more 20th century books would appear. I wonder what he would think of Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan or Chinua Achebe? I think I'd put some of their works on my own best 100 books list. show less

570. The World's Ten Greatest Novels, by W. Somerset Maugham (read 7 Apr 1959) I was sufficiently impressed by this book so that I at once proceeded to read the great books which he picked that I had not already read. I am kind of a sucker for lists such as this book set out.