Top ten books by Charles Dickens

A.N. Wilson was born in 1950 and educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is an award-winning biographer and a celebrated novelist, winning prizes for much of his work. He lives in North London.

Wilson's new book is The Mystery of Charles Dickens.

At the Guardian he tagged Dickens's top ten books, including:

Great Expectations

If Copperfield was a rather benign version of his autobiography, here he takes the gloves off. The person he is beating up is himself. Pip believes he has inherited wealth from the sinister Miss Havisham, the rich woman of Rochester, whereas in fact the source of his wealth is the convict, Magwitch, to whom as a child Pip had shown kindness. The mistake which Pip finds so shattering reveals, to him and to us, all his skewed values, all his cult of wealth and status. Technically the most flawless of the fictions, and one that makes for truly uncomfortable reading.

Read about another entry on the list.

Great Expectations appears on Will Harris's top ten list of random encounters in literature, Caroline Crampton's top ten list of books about the River Thames, Jenny Kawecki's list of four of the worst holidays in fiction, Lynne Truss's 6 best books list, Charlotte Seager's list of five well-known literary obsessives who take things too far, TheReadDown's list of seventeen books to read during wedding season, Phoebe Walker's list of eight of the best feasts quotes in literature, Rachel Cooke's top ten list of single women, Robert Williams's top ten list of loners in fiction, Chrissie Gruebel's top ten list of books set in London, Melissa Albert's list of five interesting fictional characters who would make undesirable roommates, Janice Clark's list of seven top novels about the horrors of adolescence, Amy Wilkinson's list of five books Kate Middleton should have read while waiting to give birth, Kate Clanchy's top ten list of novels that reflect the real qualities of adolescence, Joseph Olshan's list of six favorite books, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best clocks in literature, ten of the best appropriate deaths in literature, ten of the best castles in literature, ten of the best Hamlets, ten of the best card games in literature, and ten best list of fights in fiction. It also made Tony Parsons' list of the top ten troubled males in fiction, David Nicholls' top ten list of literary tear jerkers, and numbers among Kurt Anderson's five most essential books. The novel is #1 on Melissa Katsoulis' list of "twenty-five films that made it from the book shelf to the box office with credibility intact."

Read an 1861 review of Great Expectations.

--Marshal Zeringue