All Time Top Ten

Anna Karenina moves in the esteemed circles of St. Petersburg society. She appears to have all the trappings of wealth, a high-ranking husband and a lovely son. Yet, this is not enough for Anna. An affair with Count Vronsky brings excitement for Anna but in its wake follows scandal, jealousy, bitterness and destruction. “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Anna Karenina has been listed the “Greatest Book of all Time” in Time Magazine, January 2007.

Shakespeare’s best known play and the most quoted work of the English language.

Hamlet’s father is dead and he struggles with the desire for revenge. The play uses this backdrop to explore intrigue, incest, desire, and what is important in life.

Regularly included in lists of the greatest works of all time.

A seminal work of Realism, and one of the most influential novels ever written.

“What is remarkable in Madame Bovary is that its mediocre beings, with their earthbound ambitions and pedestrian problems, impress us, by virtue of the structure and the writing that create them, as beings who are out of the ordinary within their ordinary manner of being.” – Mario Vargas Llosa, in The Perpetual Orgy

The novel focuses on a doctor’s wife, Emma Bovary, as she spirals out of control trying to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life.

Widely seen as Eliot’s greatest work, it is almost unanimously acclaimed as one of the great Victorian era novels. George Eliot (aka Mary Anne Evans) interweaves the diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community to create a richly nuanced and moving drama. Hailed by Virginia Woolf in The Times Literary Supplement, 1919 as ‘one of the few English novels written for grown-up people’.

Set in the mid 1800s before the Civil War, Huckleberry Finn and Jim, a runaway slave, drift on their raft down the Mississippi River. As they journey, adventure beckons bringing them closer whilst exposing entrenched values and attitudes as large blemishes on the Southern landscape. Controversial when first published. Paradigm shifting. Regarded as a masterpiece of American Literature. Listed as No.5 by Time magazine in its list of “10 Greatest Books of All Time”, January 2007.

Chekhov is now the most popular playwright in the English-speaking world after Shakespeare, but many think that his short stories are his greatest achievement. Raymond Carver said: ‘Chekhov’s stories are as wonderful (and necessary) now as when they first appeared. …he produced masterpieces, stories that shrive us as well as delight and move us, that lay bare our emotions in ways only true art can accomplish.’ Chekhov’s stories are ranked No.9 on Time magazine’s list of the “10 Greatest Books of all time”, January 2007.

The Lady With the Dog is one of Chekhov’s most famous stories. What seems like a brief affair between two married people becomes a threat to their family lives as they find they cannot forget each other. Chekhov is now the most popular playwright in the English-speaking world after Shakespeare, but many think that his short stories are his greatest achievement. Chekhov’s stories are ranked No.9 on Time magazine’s list of the “10 Greatest Books of all time”, January 2007.