Anthony Burgess Best 99 Novels
Anthony Burgess's list of the best ninety-nine novels from 1934 to 1984
1934 Party Going by Henry Green; After Many a Summer Dies the Swan by Aldous Huxley; Finnegans Wake by James Joyce; At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien
1940 The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene; For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway; Strangers and Brothers (to 1970) by C. P. Snow
1941 The Aerodrome by Rex Warner
1944 The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary; The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
1945 Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
1946 Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
1947 The Victim by Saul Bellow; Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
1948 The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene; The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer; No Highway by Nevil Shute
1949 The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen Ape; Essence by Aldous Huxley; Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell; The Body by William Sansom
1950 Scenes from Provincial Life by William Cooper; The Disenchanted by Budd Schulberg
1951 A Dance to the Music of Time (to 1975) by Anthony Powell; The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger; A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight (to 1969) by Henry Williamson; The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
1952 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison; The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway; Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor; Sword of Honor (to 1961) by Evelyn Waugh
1953 The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler; The Groves of Academe by Mary McCarthy 1954 Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
1957 Room at the Top by John Braine; The Alexandria Quartet (to 1960) by Lawrence Durrell; The London Novels (to 1960) by Colin MacInnes; The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
1958 The Bell by Iris Murdoch; Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe; The Once and Future King by T.H. White
1959 The Mansion by William Faulkner; Goldfinger by Ian Fleming
1960 Facial Justice by L.P. Hartley; The Balkan Trilogy (to 1965) by Olivia Manning
1961 The Mighty and Their Fall by Ivy Compton-Burnett; Catch-22 by Joseph Heller; The Fox in the Attic by Richard Hughes; Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White; The Old Men at the Zoo by Angus Wilson
1962 Another Country by James Baldwin; An Error of Judgement by Pamela Hansford Johnson; Island by Aldous Huxley; The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing; Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
1963 The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
1964 The Spire by William Golding; Heartland by Wilson Harris; A Single Man byChristopher Isherwood; The Defense by Vladimir Nabokov; Late Call by Angus Wilson
1965 The Lockwood Concern by John O'Hara; Cocksure by Mordecai Richler; The Mandelbaum Gate by Muriel Spark
1966 A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe; The Anti-Death League by Kingsley Amis; Giles Goat-Boy by John Barth; The Late Bourgeois World by Nadine Gordimer; The Last Gentleman by Walker Percy
1967 The Vendor of Sweets by R.K. Narayan
1968 The Image Men by J.B. Priestley; Pavane by Keith Roberts
1969 The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles; Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth 1970 Bomber by Len Deighton
1973 Sweet Dreams by Michael Frayn; Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
1975 Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow; The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury
1976 The Doctor's Wife by Brian Moore; Falstaff by Robert Nye
1977 How To Save Your Own Life by Erica Jong; Farewell Companions by James Plunkett; Staying On by Paul Scott
1978 The Coup by John Updike
1979 The Unlimited Dream Company by J.G. Ballard; Dubin's Lives by Bernard Malamud; A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul; Sophie's Choice by William Styron
1980 Life in the West by Brian Aldiss; Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban; How Far Can You Go? by David Lodge; A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
1981 Lanark by Alasdair Gray; Darconville's Cat by Alexander Theroux; The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux; Creation by Gore Vidal
1982 The Rebel Angels by Robertson Davies
1983 Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer
1934 Party Going by Henry Green; After Many a Summer Dies the Swan by Aldous Huxley; Finnegans Wake by James Joyce; At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien
1940 The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene; For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway; Strangers and Brothers (to 1970) by C. P. Snow
1941 The Aerodrome by Rex Warner
1944 The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary; The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
1945 Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
1946 Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
1947 The Victim by Saul Bellow; Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
1948 The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene; The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer; No Highway by Nevil Shute
1949 The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen Ape; Essence by Aldous Huxley; Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell; The Body by William Sansom
1950 Scenes from Provincial Life by William Cooper; The Disenchanted by Budd Schulberg
1951 A Dance to the Music of Time (to 1975) by Anthony Powell; The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger; A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight (to 1969) by Henry Williamson; The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
1952 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison; The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway; Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor; Sword of Honor (to 1961) by Evelyn Waugh
1953 The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler; The Groves of Academe by Mary McCarthy 1954 Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
1957 Room at the Top by John Braine; The Alexandria Quartet (to 1960) by Lawrence Durrell; The London Novels (to 1960) by Colin MacInnes; The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
1958 The Bell by Iris Murdoch; Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe; The Once and Future King by T.H. White
1959 The Mansion by William Faulkner; Goldfinger by Ian Fleming
1960 Facial Justice by L.P. Hartley; The Balkan Trilogy (to 1965) by Olivia Manning
1961 The Mighty and Their Fall by Ivy Compton-Burnett; Catch-22 by Joseph Heller; The Fox in the Attic by Richard Hughes; Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White; The Old Men at the Zoo by Angus Wilson
1962 Another Country by James Baldwin; An Error of Judgement by Pamela Hansford Johnson; Island by Aldous Huxley; The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing; Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
1963 The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
1964 The Spire by William Golding; Heartland by Wilson Harris; A Single Man byChristopher Isherwood; The Defense by Vladimir Nabokov; Late Call by Angus Wilson
1965 The Lockwood Concern by John O'Hara; Cocksure by Mordecai Richler; The Mandelbaum Gate by Muriel Spark
1966 A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe; The Anti-Death League by Kingsley Amis; Giles Goat-Boy by John Barth; The Late Bourgeois World by Nadine Gordimer; The Last Gentleman by Walker Percy
1967 The Vendor of Sweets by R.K. Narayan
1968 The Image Men by J.B. Priestley; Pavane by Keith Roberts
1969 The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles; Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth 1970 Bomber by Len Deighton
1973 Sweet Dreams by Michael Frayn; Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
1975 Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow; The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury
1976 The Doctor's Wife by Brian Moore; Falstaff by Robert Nye
1977 How To Save Your Own Life by Erica Jong; Farewell Companions by James Plunkett; Staying On by Paul Scott
1978 The Coup by John Updike
1979 The Unlimited Dream Company by J.G. Ballard; Dubin's Lives by Bernard Malamud; A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul; Sophie's Choice by William Styron
1980 Life in the West by Brian Aldiss; Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban; How Far Can You Go? by David Lodge; A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
1981 Lanark by Alasdair Gray; Darconville's Cat by Alexander Theroux; The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux; Creation by Gore Vidal
1982 The Rebel Angels by Robertson Davies
1983 Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer