Ten Novels and their Authors

In this classic guide, Maugham introduces and discusses what he considers to be the ten greatest novels and their authors. Here are some of the formulae of greatness in the genre, as well as the flaws and heresies that enfeeble it. Maugham's choice list: Fielding's "Tom Jones"; Dickens's "David Copperfield"; Flaubert's "Madame Bovary"; Balzac's "Old Man Goriot"; "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte, "The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoevsky; "The Red and the Black" by Stendhal, "Pride and Prejudice" by Austen; Melville's "Moby Dick"; Tolstoy's "War and Peace".