Ninety-nine Novels


Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English since 1939 – A Personal Choice is an essay by British writer Anthony Burgess, published by Allison & Busby in 1984. It covers a 44-year span between 1939 and 1983. Burgess was a prolific reader, in his early career reviewing more than 350 novels in just over two years for The Yorkshire Post. In the course of his career he wrote more than 30 novels. The list represents his choices; in an interview with Don Swaim, Burgess revealed that the book was originally commissioned by a Nigerian publishing company and written in two weeks.

The List

AuthorTitleYear
Chinua AchebeA Man of the People1966
Brian AldissLife in the West1980
Kingsley AmisLucky Jim1954
Kingsley AmisThe Anti-Death League1966
James BaldwinAnother Country1962
J. G. BallardThe Unlimited Dream Company1979
John BarthGiles Goat-Boy1966
Saul BellowThe Victim1947
Saul BellowHumboldt's Gift1975
Elizabeth BowenThe Heat of the Day1949
Malcolm BradburyThe History Man1975
John BraineRoom at the Top1957
Joyce CaryThe Horse's Mouth1944
Raymond ChandlerThe Long Goodbye1953
Ivy Compton-BurnettThe Mighty and Their Fall1961
William CooperScenes from Provincial Life1950
Robertson DaviesThe Rebel Angels1982
Len DeightonBomber1970
Lawrence DurrellThe Alexandria Quartet1957
Ralph EllisonInvisible Man1952
William FaulknerThe Mansion1959
Ian FlemingGoldfinger1959
John FowlesThe French Lieutenant's Woman1969
Michael FraynSweet Dreams1973
William GoldingThe Spire1964
Nadine GordimerThe Late Bourgeois World1966
Alasdair GrayLanark1981
Henry GreenParty Going1939
Graham GreeneThe Power and the Glory1940
Graham GreeneThe Heart of the Matter1948
Wilson HarrisHeartland1964
L. P. HartleyFacial Justice1960
Joseph HellerCatch-221961
Ernest HemingwayFor Whom the Bell Tolls1940
Ernest HemingwayThe Old Man and the Sea1952
Russell HobanRiddley Walker1980
Richard HughesThe Fox in the Attic1961
Aldous HuxleyAfter Many a Summer1939
Aldous HuxleyApe and Essence1948
Aldous HuxleyIsland1962
Christopher IsherwoodA Single Man1964
Pamela Hansford JohnsonAn Error of Judgement1962
Erica JongHow to Save Your Own Life1977
James JoyceFinnegans Wake1939
Doris LessingThe Golden Notebook1962
David LodgeHow Far Can You Go?1980
Malcolm LowryUnder the Volcano1947
Colin MacInnesThe London Novels1957
Norman MailerThe Naked and the Dead1948
Norman MailerAncient Evenings1983
Bernard MalamudThe Assistant1957
Bernard MalamudDubin's Lives1979
Olivia ManningThe Balkan Trilogy1960
W. Somerset MaughamThe Razor's Edge1944
Mary McCarthyThe Groves of Academe1952
Brian MooreThe Doctor's Wife1976
Iris MurdochThe Bell1958
Vladimir NabokovPale Fire1962
Vladimir NabokovThe Defense1964
V. S. NaipaulA Bend in the River1979
R. K. NarayanThe Vendor of Sweets1967
Robert NyeFalstaff1976
Flann O'BrienAt Swim-Two-Birds1939
Flannery O'ConnorWise Blood1952
John O'HaraThe Lockwood Concern1965
George OrwellNineteen Eighty-Four1949
Mervyn PeakeTitus Groan1946
Walker PercyThe Last Gentleman1966
James PlunkettFarewell Companions1977
Anthony PowellA Dance to the Music of Time1951
J. B. PriestleyThe Image Men1968
Thomas PynchonGravity's Rainbow1973
Mordecai RichlerCocksure1968
Keith RobertsPavane1968
Philip RothPortnoy's Complaint1969
J. D. SalingerThe Catcher in the Rye1951
William SansomThe Body1949
Budd SchulbergThe Disenchanted1950
Paul Mark ScottStaying On1977
Nevil ShuteNo Highway1948
Alan SillitoeSaturday Night and Sunday Morning1958
C. P. SnowStrangers and Brothers1940
Muriel SparkThe Girls of Slender Means1963
Muriel SparkThe Mandelbaum Gate1965
William StyronSophie's Choice1979
Alexander TherouxDarconville's Cat1981
Paul TherouxThe Mosquito Coast1981
John Kennedy TooleA Confederacy of Dunces1980
John UpdikeThe Coup1978
Gore VidalCreation1981
Rex WarnerThe Aerodrome1941
Evelyn WaughBrideshead Revisited1945
Evelyn WaughSword of Honour1952
T. H. WhiteThe Once and Future King1958
Patrick WhiteRiders in the Chariot1961
Henry WilliamsonA Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight1951
Angus WilsonThe Old Men at the Zoo1961
Angus WilsonLate Call1964
Herman WoukThe Caine Mutiny1951