Reading haphazardly but persistently back into the realms of Eng Lit, I kept notes here for a while.

Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte D'Arthur 1485

As edited by William Caxton, modern spelling edition from Project Gutenberg. Malory brought together separate stories from France and England and wove them into a more or less consistent whole. Slow going and repetitive by modern standards, I read the beginning and then skipped forward to Book II. But also a completely absorbing story of peace and unity shattered by Launcelot's love for Queen Guinevere, and the strange and dangerous quest for the holy grail.

John Aubrey, Brief Lives (died 1697, first published posthumously in 1813)

Not fiction but generally classified as literature. Pleased to find a scathing sketch of Geoffrey Crayon, author of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Daniel Defoe, Journal of the Plague Year 1722

Partly fictional, apparently. Defoe and his household sit tight in London despite the plague and he goes out for daily sightseeing walks. He doesn't catch the plague, obviously.

Tobias Smollett, Roderick Random 1748

Odd and extravagant use of language. Consistently immature behaviour on the part of Random, who battles his way through life with a cutlass and two pistols, a sense of his rightful place in the world, a complete absence of liberal ideas and after a spell at sea, an aversion to working for a living. Self restraint is not his strong point: 'As my first transport abated, my passion grew turbulent and unruly. I was giddy with standing on the brink of bliss, and all my virtue and philosophy were scarce sufficient to restrain the inordinate sallies of desire. Narcissa perceived the conflict within me, and with her usual dignity of prudence, called off my imagination from the object in view...'

Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield 1766

Period comedy, didn't really seem worth reading to the end. The insight into life of the period is interesting but the vicar's constant ruminations pretty soon become tedious.

Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland 1775

Fascinating just because it is so old, Scotland seems wild and almost lawless yet has an aristocracy who are always willing to provide hospitality to visitors of their own social class.

Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent 1800

Vivid but forgettable account of Anglo-Irish life. Narrated by Thady Quirk, who sees four generations of English landlords make a mess of their affairs, and whose son Jason cheats the last of them out of their estate - or he probably does, we don't quite find out for sure.

Thomas De Quincy, Confessions of an English Opium Eater 1821

De Quincy is entertaining and elusive on key facts about his life. The confessions are a sort of biography but all the time you sense there are things he cannot say. The actual confessions are quite a small part of the book. I managed to read about the opium nightmares that made sleep something to dread, on an occasion when I couldn't sleep myself and got up to read for a while. While he says little about the actual pleasures of opium, he is distinctly precise about the nightmarish descent into repetitive dreams.

William Hazlitt, The Spirit of the Age 1825

Only dipped into this.

Edward Bulwer Lytton, Paul Clifford 1830

Supposedly a prime example of purple prose, it's actually a very fascinating rags to riches story. Highwayman manages to develop a respectable front, falls in love with a judge's daughter and eventually has to run away to America with her. Worth re-reading some time.

Frederick Marryat, Peter Simple 1834

Many similarities to Roderick Random, but written a century later, as is apparent from the more sophisticated storytelling. The naval battles are a treat, evidently written from first-hand experience. Simple, the fool of the family, proves himself not so foolish and works his way up in the Royal Navy despite some dastardly opposition. Like Random, his ultimate success is to become a full-blown member of the aristocracy.

Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford 1853

Old ladies fuss over proper attire and correct etiquette. It's almost a pity when something actually happens. Unexpectedly fascinating and endearing.

Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers 1857

Oddly similar to Meredith's The Egoist in its insistence that his heroine needs to get settled down with a suitable husband, despite stressing her independent character. Full marks though for making the politics and characters of a cathedral town fascinating.

George Eliot, Adam Bede 1859

In a way, the story of shallow, vain Hetty Sorrel, who likes Adam to pursue her but unwisely allows herself to be seduced by squire’s son Arthur. Salt of the earth type Adam berates Arthur for, directly and indirectly, ruining many lives by this lapse into weakness. Adam of course eventually finds a woman worthy of him, but it was Hetty’s misfortunes that I thought most affecting.

George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss 1860

Maggie Tulliver falls for the hunchback son of the man who ruined her father. Brother Tom restores the family fortunes and buys back the mill. Maggie gets a taste of society and runs away with another man, half-heartedly, changes her mind but is then shunned by Tom. Maggie rescues Tom from a flood. Finally they both drown in what is supposed to be a positive ending.

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations 1861

Featuring the orphan Pip, brought up by his sister and her blacksmith husband Joe Gargery. Many well known scenes esp. Miss Havisham with her blacked-out house mourning the day she was jilted, and Pip being kind to escaped convict Magwitch who eventually returns to give him a lot of money. Pip's life nearly ruined by the quest for riches and his desire to marry posh bitch Estrella. All ends well, sort of.

Thomas Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree 1872

Slow moving and idyllic but with a sting at the end. Young man (Dick) falls for the new schoolmistress (Fancy Day), wins her affections, but she equivocates more than he realises even though they end up married - with 'a secret she would never tell'.

George Eliot, Daniel Deronda 1876

An extraordinarily fascinating character, Gwendoline Harleth, stranded in a bizarre mess of pro-Zionist pontification populated by lacklustre characters. At least her terrible husband Grandcourt has some consistent nastiness - we see him stroking one dog just to annoy another, and treating his slimy manservant with casual contempt. George Eliot has an unfortunately inflexible moral code, so our heroine Gwendoline, whose only faults are being a little superficial and making a bad marriage choice, is doomed to lasting despair. The husband is conveniently killed off by drowning, but that doesn't mean she can marry the man she loves.

George Meredith, The Egoist 1879

Extraordinarily indirect sentences: in places I had to read and re-read to find out the sense of what was happening, disguised behind digressions, analogies, dissimulations, misunderstandings and simple unwillingness on the part of the characters to tell the whole truth in case they give themselves away. Clara agrees to become engaged to pompous self-centred aristocrat Willoughby but changes her mind about him, and has a hard time extricating herself.

Richard Jefferies, Amaryllis at the Fair 1887

Rural bliss overshadowed by debt: the impossibility of making ends meet simply by working hard and doing things the right way. Against the odds, a charming and absorbing book.

Rudyard Kipling, The Man Who Would be King 1888

Bizarre novella loosely based on several real events. Pair of 'loafers' manage to impress a remote tribe, until things go badly wrong.

William Morris, News From Nowhere 1890

More a political manifesto than a novel... Morris imagines an ideal future where work is a pleasure and everyone has all they need. But some niggling doubts creep into the story, hinting at something lost along with everything gained.

George Gissing, New Grub Street 1891

More about the hard life of a struggling artist. Painful, didn't finish it. The short stories are a lot better.

George and Weedon Grossmith, Diary of a Nobody 1892

Life with the Pooters, hence the adjective 'pooterish'.'We settle down in our new home, and I resolve to keep a diary.' 1918 edition with charming engravings.

Anthony Hope, Dolly Dialogues 1893-4

Droll, cynical anecdotes about fashionable life. Carter flirts with Dolly and teases Mrs Hastings, teases Dolly about Mrs Hastings to make her jealous, tells people he has never been in love and can't understand what it's like, wilfully mistranslates latin inscriptions for his own amusement. Dolly leads him on. Probably they had an affair once.

Oscar Wilde, De Profundis 1897

Written in Reading jail, or gaol as Wilde spelled it. His attempt to come to terms with losing everything: wife and children, income and reputation as well as his freedom, and his hope to come out of it a better person. A long way from the careless wit he is known for.

Mary Cholmondeley, Red Pottage 1899

John Betjeman summed it up better than I can:'a picture of rectory life and mental cruelty and frustration and stupidity therein among the lush, lovely and uncaring landscape of Shropshire'. Lord Newhaven has a sadistic streak, confronting his wife's lover and making him draw straws: whoever draws the short straw must take his own life in five months time. The author doesn't appear to think this inappropriate. Heroines Rachel and Hester have a rough time but we glimpse eventual happiness for them.

Arnold Bennett, Anna of the Five Towns 1902

Poor put-upon Anna keeps house for her miserable old git father and sweet half sister, helps the local Methodists, agrees to marry Mr Right and too late realises his shortcomings. Despite inheriting a fortune she knows her duty and is clearly never going to get to enjoy spending it.

Sarah Broom Macnaughtan, A Lame Dog's Diary 1905

Wonderful slow-moving love story, although it is only right at the end that you discover that is what it is. The genteel families in a small village visit each other, try to marry off daughters and indulge in one-upmanship and a little feminism, while our lame dog with his amputated leg and malaria attacks is alternately grouchy and resigned. Palestrina, his sister, is cool and complacent. Flippant and beautiful Mrs Fielden charms men on a whim then seems to forget all about them: we wonder if she can ever be serious about anything, but end up hoping she can.

George Gissing, House of Cobwebs, short stories 1906

Interesting collection, all dealing with poverty in some form. The title story had a struggling young author with hardly any money, spending the summer in an almost abandoned house. He finishes his book but the house proves unhealthy and he goes to his mother in Derbyshire to recover. The book sells eventually.

Edward Thomas, The Heart of England 1906

Someone wrote 'like wading through treacle' which is not unfair on the whole. Fast forward though, to Chapter XXV Earth Children, which is quite extraordinary. There must be other parts equally fascinating, if one had the patience to keep on wading.

Edmund Gosse, Father and Son 1907

Expected something very dry mainly about natural history, but in fact this is very readable. Young Edmund is driven nuts by his father's religious fanaticism, rebels in small ways but doesn't entirely escape even when he moves to lodgings in London.

W H Davies, Autobiography of a Supertramp 1908

As promoted by G B Shaw. Genuine bum refuses to work, lives as a hobo in America until he loses a leg jumping a freight train, comes back to England, tramps around, eventually gets writing seriously and becomes successful against all the odds. Knew D H Lawrence. Also have his poems on Kindle - Drinking Song was all right, but mainly they seem too precious to be interesting.

J M Barrie, Peter Pan 1911

Charming and surprisingly subtle, especially the way he sends up the pompous father. Hard to tell if he is sending up the woman's role that Wendy slips into, or just thinks it natural.

Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes 1911

Set in Russia and in Geneva before the Russian revolution. Hard working Razumov has his quiet life shattered when fellow student Haldin comes to him for refuge after a political assassination. Razumov reports the man to the authorities, and spends the rest of the book grappling with fear and self disgust. Great characters and a surprise ending: practically everyone comes out of this a better person, although hopelessly crippled and totally deaf in his case.

D H Lawrence, Sons and Lovers 1913

Set in the mining district around Sheffield. Uneven. Difficult young man finds plenty to agonise about, especially women. Makes his childhood girlfriend sleep with him then dumps her. Gets fed up with more sophisticated older woman. Ends in despair.

Compton McKenzie, Sinister Street 1913-14

Extraordinarily detailed account of a young man's upbringing and formative years. Edwardian love child Michael Fane grows up with a governess and only occasional visits from his mother, goes to public school and then Oxford, dabbles in the underworld and finally emerges convinced of the merits of unthinking conservatism. The story skims over nothing, successfully involving the reader in all the thoughts and details of every period and events in his life.

Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists 1914

Tedious rant about the conditions of the working class, more polemic than novel. The revolution is coming, sometime maybe...

Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier 1915

'This is the saddest story I have ever heard' is the first line. Two wealthy couples, one English and one American, maintain a bland conventional facade - what he calls being 'good people' - while their lives fall apart. Smart and cynical at first sight, but it goes deeper than that as the story accelerates towards to its conclusion.

Rebecca West, The Return of the Soldier 1918

Shellshocked soldier Chris has lost all memory of his beautiful but materialistic wife. The last thing he can recall is a youthful romance with innkeeper's daughter Margaret, at idyllic Monkey Island on the Thames. Hysterical spinster narrator dotes on Chris and veers wildly between disgust and admiration for Margaret. His cure is not a happy ending. I managed to buy this a second time (poor memory) but it was worth re-reading.

Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence 1919

Written as a fictitious account of a writer’s personal experience of a stockbroker who leaves his wife to take up art. Based loosely on the life of Gaugin, with considerable changes. His insistence on oddities of character are not altogether convincing.

Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow 1921

Young writer Denis is attracted to Anne, who isn’t interested, and is annoyed by Mary who is. The setting is a country home weekend, more a series of vignettes the novel: the titles of the false books on a secret door in the library, sleeping on the roof, Barbecue-Smith’s method for writing prose in a trance, the frustrated vicar who isn’t taken seriously. Best of all, Mr Scogan’s wickedly accurate guess at the plot of Denis’s novel in progress.

Walter de la Mare, Memoirs of a Midget 1921

Read this a while ago. Small person makes her way in life with surprising confidence.

D H Lawrence, England, My England and Other Stories 1922

Title story about a charming but useless young man, lives in an idyllic house provided by his father in law, fails to engage generally, enlists and gets killed. The story about wartime tram girls is memorable - 'the most dangerous tram service in England, as the authorities themselves declare, with pride'.

William Gerhardie, The Polyglots 1925

Bafflingly touted as a comic novel: there is some tedious satire about Russian politics which can be mainly ignored. That doesn't spoil the pleasure of the rather unique worldview that Gerhardie articulates, I think only half seriously. Memorable especially for his half-hearted love affair with 'Sylvia Ninon', nine year old Natasha charming everyone around her, and the claustrophobic gloom of the sea voyage back to England.

Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway 1925

Stream of consciousness taking place over the course of one day with some interconnected characters and a few flashbacks. Not so much a story, more a framework for some thoughts on men and women, but especially men: Sir William Bradshaw, a sinister psychiatrist, and Septimus Smith who kills himself to avoid treatment, pompous Hugh Whitbread, and not-quite-right Peter Walsh who was in love with Clarissa Dalloway and never got over it.

Helen Thomas, As it Was 1926 & World Without End 1931

Helen falls for romantic but unsuccessful and erratic poet, Edward Thomas in real life, a man forever falling into fits of depression and complaining that the world doesn't sufficiently appreciate his genius. They marry and live in poverty, he abuses her and she dotes on him equally shamelessly. They live in a succession of picturesque cottages and always end up being thrown out. Messy and emotional throughout. Sadly his poetry was exceptionally banal, unless I'm missing something, but I enjoyed some of his prose (see 1906).

Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse 1927

Mrs Ramsay is a kind of domestic goddess, making everyone feel valued when she isn't infuriating them by being so self possessed. At the end of chapter I, after what might be a moment of social perfection, she glances behind her as she leaves the dining room and realises that moment is already slipping into the past. And then in a brief but intense interlude chapter II shows us the house at night with everyone asleep, then the house long empty, decay setting in and the ageing charlady coming in sometimes but unable to cope. The father and two youngest children do come back ten years later, and finally make it to the lighthouse on the last page but one.

Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man 1928

Growing up privileged and idle in the Weald. Elegaic fictionalised autobiography, just hinting that his peaceful existence is not going to last, until finally the war starts and he decides to enlist right away. Goes on a bit too much about the fox hunting.

D H Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover 1928

A rant against industrialisation, with some ridiculous thoughts on how to reverse the trend. Men in red trousers to bolster their pride. Sex as catharsis. Oddly the book ends up not with the gamekeeper harshly put in his place, but with his expectation of living with Lady C eventually, after the baby is born.

Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall 1928

Young man thrown out of university through no fault of his own (except failing to defend himself), tries teaching in a hopeless school, rescued (a theme is emerging here) by rich lady who keeps him as a sort of pet. He ends up back at the same university claiming to be a distant relation - nobody notices. Waugh's first novel is a disappointingly trivial comedy / satire, not especially funny and annoyingly flippant throughout.

Virginia Woolf, a Room of One's Own 1928

Based on two lectures Woolf gave to women students in Cambridge. Beautifully written and of course thought provoking even if you can't entirely agree with her: I wished I had read it earlier in this reading expedition.

Virginia Woolf, Orlando 1928

Loopy plot with no discernible thesis except for the lot of women through the centuries. You can only be glad this stream of consciousness style never became mainstream, but it's enjoyable in small doses. I wondered if the book was the achievement of a definite aim, or more the result of unplanned experimentation. Free association (?) verges on incoherent towards the end.

Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That 1929

Half-hearted autobiography reads as random thoughts and incidents except when he's writing about WW1. Shellshock may go some way to explaining it. Prisoners killed, men shot for cowardice, official whorehouses and suicide: the war chapters don't pull any punches. Vivid and illuminating.

Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale 1930

On the face of it, about a famous artist who Maugham allegedly based on Thomas Hardy and notoriously lampoons in this novel. Much more interesting is the young protagonist sent to stay in the country and finding his feet.

Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm 1932

Facetious and witty, making fun of the conventions of rural drama. With odd futuristic elements that seem entirely gratuitous.

Vera Brittan, Testament of Youth 1933

No doubt worthy but tedious, far too many extracts from her diary and quoted lines of poetry which it is more than tempting to skip. May never finish...

George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London 1933

Half novel, half documentary, brought to life by what must be mainly real characters. After life as a plongeur in untidy and Bohemian inter-war Paris, England seems clean and tidy, but the poorest people are obliged to keep on the move because the law doesn't allow them to stay in one place.

Christopher Isherwood, Mr Norris Changes Trains 1935

Nazi-era intrigue and angst in prewar Berlin. I read this before Goodbye to Berlin - the stories and characters overlap. Mr Norris is bad news but changes allegiances, not trains, being hopelessly dishonest with himself as well as with everyone else. Isherwood in the guise of William Bradshaw does his cynical Englishman abroad thing, watching but not really involved.

George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant 1936

The colonial experience, having to do the wrong thing because it is the done thing. Published in a magazine, then later in several of his short story collections.

Walter de la Mare, Stories, Essays and Poems 1938

The best of these have a sort of haunting quality, but overall rather lightweight. The first story, The Almond Tree, is the best. A boy finds his father dead in the snow, isn't very surprised, partly pleased not to have his authority any more. Also features The Listeners, surely his best poem.

Graham Greene, Brighton Rock 1938

Boy gangster Pinkie tries to move up in the criminal underworld but he's badly dressed, only 16, doesn't seem to have much of a gang. Murder to cover murder, annoying amateur detective Ida on his trail, marriage to stop young waitress Rose testifying against him. Pinkie wallows defiantly in Catholic guilt, but tantalisingly begins to feel a little tenderness for Rose. He suppresses it and things do not end well.

Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin 1939

Semi-autobiographical, the is special for the way Isherwood lets himself become involved with his variously deluded and messed-up characters, all the while maintaining an ironical detachment, so you don't quite know his true feelings. Especially extraordinary is the nightmarish visit to the sanatorium, isolated in deep snow at the end of a long cart track: 'all this was part of the long, rather sinister symbolic dream which I seemed to have been dreaming throughout the day'.

Siegfried Sassoon, The Flower Show Match and Other Stories 1941

A bit of a spoiler for the actual books - these are extracts from three or four earlier books, not short stories, but I thought the charm of the telling was more apparent here than in the longer context of the whole books.

Flora Thompson, Lark Rise to Candleford, A Trilogy 1945

Classic and poignant account of the last remnants of pre-industrial rural England. Fiddle playing on the green, the village school, walking many miles to go into town. Things change drastically over the course of the book: our heroine Laura ends up going to work in town.

Norman Collins, London Belongs to Me 1945

Life in a London boarding house.

Philip Larkin, A Girl in Winter 1947

Grim wartime city, Hull presumably, where foreign refugee woman Katherine Lind works in a library, like Larkin, with a pompous boss and no heating (except in the director's office). A day in the life: sent to sort out a librarian colleague with bad toothache, she drops in to her flat and finds a male acquaintance come to visit before he goes back to the war. She lets him seduce her despite realising she no longer likes him. He leaves, of course.

Alan Paton, Cry the Beloved Country 1948

Unbelievably tedious tone, didn't think it worth finishing.

Doris Lessing, The Grass is Singing 1950

Evocative although bleak. Difficult man takes young wife and disappoints her by never sticking to one thing, fails to make a living by farming so they are desperately poor and have the lowest status possible for white people in South Africa. Black servant understands her, feels betrayed when she plans to leave, kills her.

Colin McInnes, To the Victor the Spoils 1950

Chaos, corruption and incompetence, along with some thoroughly unconvincing conversations about the German character and the rights and wrongs of putting people in prison. Not quite the book it could have been.

Rose Macaulay, The World My Wilderness 1950

First Penguin edition with nice wood engraving on the cover. Our rebellious heroine Barbary is brought up on the fringes of the French resistance and learns bad habits, is partly responsible for her stepfather getting murdered by the maquis. Sent to London to straighten out but fails to fit in, spends her time among the bombed-out ruins around St Paul's.

A Question of Upbringing, Anthony Powell 1951

First of the series A Dance to the Music of Time. Covers pretty much the same ground as the corresponding part of Sinister Street - going up to University, theorising about women without having much to do with them - but without the intensity. Unimpressive.

L P Hartley, The Go-Between 1953

Leo Colston looks back on the long hot summer of 1900 when his life took a wrong turn, almost (but possibly not quite) irrevocably so. Staying with a schoolfriend at a minor country house, Leo becomes messenger-boy to the sister, her war-scarred but titled fiancé, and her unsuitable lower-class lover. The book is special for Leo's half belief in his ability to make spells. Bullied at school, he makes a page of sophisticated nonsense for the two main bullies to find - and then (coincidentally) they both fall off the school roof, proving the effectiveness of the spell and earning Leo a reputation. He tries an even more spectacular spell with deadly nightshade, a sinister plant that fills a roofless outhouse, a spell that he believes to have triggered the lover's suicide. Fifty years later, Leo is still messed up.

John Wain, Hurry on Down 1953

Lovely yellowed orange-cover Penguin, still just about holding together. Memorable, from last reading, for the image of a man stamping on another man's hand because he's wearing a knuckleduster. Angry young man hates his educated background, finds work as window cleaner, drug smuggler, hospital orderly, chauffeur, getting into trouble each time, considers a low key safe marriage to working class rose Rosa only to let her down... ends up insulated by his success as a gag writer.

Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim 1954

Our protagonist exposes his thoroughly discreditable thoughts without putting us off him, I think a new technique in reaction against the good hero, bad villain stereotype. The humour seems dated - the burnt bedclothes must have been replayed hundreds of times since - and sometimes inexplicable. Jim’s ultimate success is mainly a side-effect of the other characters' awfulness. Amis aims to vindicate the well-meaning insecure anti-hero by contrast with the self-importance of the establishment figures around him, but it is only partly convincing. Often cited as a model of the modern novel, enjoyable enough but perhaps over-rated.

Iris Murdoch, Under the Net 1954

Young waster Jake Donoghue mooches around London and occasionally Paris sponging off his friends and misinterpreting the character of everyone around him. Colourful not very serious first novel. Our hero is offered 'a sinecure' and turns it down, works as a hospital porter to get back down to earth, finally begins to realise who his friends really are.

John Masters, Bhowani Junction 1954

Told sequentially from the viewpoint of Anglo Indian railway man Patrick Taylor, WAC (I) and engine driver's daughter Victoria Jones, cynical and tough English colonel Rodney Savage, then back to Patrick. Vivid and illuminating about this phase of Indian history. Rather uneven tone, the Savage section seems more dated than the rest.

Elspeth Huxley, The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood 1959

Unlike Doris Lessing, these are happy recollections of a childhood in Kenya, her parents making a farm out of wild and not very productive country. Set well before the Mau Mau uprising in 1952, already the local tribes have been pushed out of the open country into the hills. The book ends with the outbreak of WW1 and the family plans to move out for the duration.

Keith Waterhouse, Billy Liar 1959

Compares favourably with Lucky Jim, the inevitable Angry Young Man comparison. Billy has a lot more character than Jim, an unfortunate tendency to tell elaborate untruths at every opportunity. Much of the story involves the calendars that he didn't post, so as to appropriate the cost of postage, and his pathetic attempts to hide the evidence. Everything comes unstuck and, very plausibly, he plans to run off to London but decides otherwise.

Alan Sillitoe, Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner 1959

Not just dated, an awkward tone somewhere in between street urchin and cultured if self-taught writer that doesn't always work. Depressing stories with some real excitement here and there - the runner deliberately losing the race simply because winning is expected of him, the boy helping a man hang himself (unsuccessfully), spying on the local mummy's boy to find out what went wrong with his short-lived marriage - and quite a lot of child abuse.

Doris Lessing, In Search of the English 1960

Colourful account of coming to London and living in a shared house in the East End. Too bad she turned to science fiction.

Miss Read, Thrush Green 1959

An English village. Too sweet, too symmetrical, but still evocative. Two young couples commit to each other, of one couple both decide independently to stay in the village, and two old people realise it's time to hand the reins over to the next generation. In contrast, there is also a lot of illness and morbid thoughts about old age. Particularly clichéd: a suspiciously masculine single woman, a lowlife drunkard and a thieving gypsy, and a batty old lady who lives alone with her cats.

Stan Barstow, A Kind of Loving 1960

The kitchen-sink school... The self-consciously common tone is grating at first but begins to make sense. There is a regard for acquiring culture that is quite unusual in English writing, although it's also a theme in early D H Lawrence - a reflection of their working class background perhaps. Unlike Billy Liar, our Vic is a decent chap with nice parents and good prospects, grits his teeth when his girlfriend gets pregnant and resolves to make the best of his lack of options.

Muriel Spark, The Girls of Slender Means 1963

Our heroine lives through WW2 in a hostel for young ladies. Period atmosphere. The plot is simple, everything leading up to the climax where heartless young woman goes back into the burning building to rescue an evening dress, not her own, while others are not thin enough to escape through the bathroom window. Only one of the other girls actually dies.

Margaret Drabble, A Summer Bird Cage 1963

A first novel, rather obviously. Two sisters are horrified by the idea of marrying without money, bringing up babies in squalid poverty like some of their contemporaries, and address the problem in two different ways.

John Fowles, The Magus 1965

Implausible premise, difficult to suspend disbelief: mysterious millionaire selects our hero for an unconventional course of psychological challenges. Only the Nazi atrocity is entirely convincing, that and the seductive charm of his pine-covered Greek island. Annoying protagonist gets angry a bit too easily, right up to the end of the book, leaving the reader unconvinced all that elaborate character training has actually changed him at all. We don't find out if he gets back together with Alison, it's left hanging.