Ninety-nine Novels

1984 Simon & Schuster edition

Anthony Burgess's book Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English since 1939 — A Personal Choice (Allison & Busby, 1984, ISBN 0-85031-585-9) 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 over thirty novels.

The list represents his personal choices.

In an interview with Don Swaim^[1] Burgess reveals that the book was originally commissioned by a Nigerian publishing company, and written in two weeks.

Sorted by author

• Chinua Achebe – A Man of the People – (1966)
• Brian Aldiss – Life in the West (1980)
• Kingsley Amis – Lucky Jim (1954)
• Kingsley Amis – The Anti-Death League (1966)
• James Baldwin – Another Country (1962)
• J. G. Ballard – The Unlimited Dream Company (1979)
• John Barth – Giles Goat-Boy (1966)
• Saul Bellow – The Victim (1947)
• Saul Bellow – Humboldt's Gift (1975)
• Elizabeth Bowen – The Heat of the Day (1949)
• Malcolm Bradbury – The History Man (1975)
• John Braine – Room at the Top (1957)
• Joyce Cary – The Horse's Mouth (1944)
• Raymond Chandler – The Long Goodbye (1953)
• Ivy Compton-Burnett – The Mighty and Their Fall (1961)
• William Cooper – Scenes from Provincial Life (1950)
• Robertson Davies – The Rebel Angels (1982)
• Len Deighton – Bomber (1970)
• Lawrence Durrell – The Alexandria Quartet (1957)
• Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man (1952)
• William Faulkner – The Mansion (1959)
• Ian Fleming – Goldfinger (1959)
• John Fowles – The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969)
• Michael Frayn – Sweet Dreams (1973)
• William Golding – The Spire (1964)
• Nadine Gordimer – The Late Bourgeois World (1966)
• Alasdair Gray – Lanark (1981)
• Henry Green – Party Going (1939)
• Graham Greene – The Power and the Glory (1940)
• Graham Greene – The Heart of the Matter (1948)
• Wilson Harris – Heartland (1964)
• L. P. Hartley – Facial Justice (1960)
• Joseph Heller – Catch-22 (1961)
• Ernest Hemingway – For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
• Ernest Hemingway – The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
• Russell Hoban – Riddley Walker (1980)
• Richard Hughes – The Fox in the Attic (1961)
• Aldous Huxley – After Many a Summer (1939)
• Aldous Huxley – Ape and Essence (1948)
• Aldous Huxley – Island (1962)
• Christopher Isherwood – A Single Man (1964)
• Pamela Hansford Johnson – An Error of Judgement (1962)
• Erica Jong – How to Save Your Own Life (1977)
• James Joyce – Finnegans Wake (1939)
• Doris Lessing – The Golden Notebook (1962)
• David Lodge – How Far Can You Go? (1980)
• Malcolm Lowry – Under the Volcano (1947)
• Colin MacInnes – The London Novels (1957)
• Norman Mailer – The Naked and the Dead (1948)
• Norman Mailer – Ancient Evenings (1983)
• Bernard Malamud – The Assistant (1957)
• Bernard Malamud – Dubin's Lives (1979)
• Olivia Manning – The Balkan Trilogy (1960)
• W. Somerset Maugham – The Razor's Edge (1944)
• Mary McCarthy – The Groves of Academe (1952)
• Brian Moore – The Doctor's Wife (1976)
• Iris Murdoch – The Bell (1958)
• Vladimir Nabokov – Pale Fire (1962)
• Vladimir Nabokov – The Defense (1964)
• V. S. Naipaul – A Bend in the River (1979)
• R. K. Narayan – The Vendor of Sweets (1967)
• Robert Nye – Falstaff (1976)
• Flann O'Brien – At Swim-Two-Birds (1939)
• Flannery O'Connor – Wise Blood (1952)
• John O'Hara – The Lockwood Concern (1965)
• George Orwell – Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
• Mervyn Peake – Titus Groan (1946)
• Walker Percy – The Last Gentleman (1966)
• James Plunkett – Farewell Companions (1977)
• Anthony Powell – A Dance to the Music of Time (1951)
• J. B. Priestley – The Image Men (1968)
• Thomas Pynchon – Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
• Mordecai Richler – Cocksure (1968)
• Keith Roberts – Pavane (1968)
• Philip Roth – Portnoy's Complaint (1969)
• J. D. Salinger – The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
• William Sansom – The Body (1949)
• Budd Schulberg – The Disenchanted (1950)
• Paul Mark Scott – Staying On (1977)
• Nevil Shute – No Highway (1948)
• Alan Sillitoe – Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958)
• C. P. Snow – Strangers and Brothers (1940)
• Muriel Spark – The Girls of Slender Means (1963)
• Muriel Spark – The Mandelbaum Gate (1965)
• William Styron – Sophie's Choice (1979)
• Alexander Theroux – Darconville's Cat (1981)
• Paul Theroux – The Mosquito Coast (1981)
• John Kennedy Toole – A Confederacy of Dunces (1980)
• John Updike – The Coup (1978)
• Gore Vidal – Creation (1981)
• Rex Warner – The Aerodrome (1941)
• Evelyn Waugh – Brideshead Revisited (1945)
• Evelyn Waugh – Sword of Honour (1952)
• T. H. White – The Once and Future King (1958)
• Patrick White – Riders in the Chariot (1961)
• Henry Williamson – A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight (1951)
• Angus Wilson – The Old Men at the Zoo (1961)
• Angus Wilson – Late Call (1964)
• Herman Wouk – The Caine Mutiny (1951)

Sorted by date

1930s

• 1939 – Henry Green – Party Going (1939)
• 1939 – Aldous Huxley – After Many a Summer (1939)
• 1939 – James Joyce – Finnegans Wake (1939)
• 1939 – Flann O'Brien – At Swim-Two-Birds (1939)

1940s

• 1940 – Graham Greene – The Power and the Glory (1940)
• 1940 – Ernest Hemingway – For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
• 1940 – C. P. Snow – Strangers and Brothers (1940)
• 1941 – Rex Warner – The Aerodrome (1941)
• 1944 – Joyce Cary – The Horse's Mouth (1944)
• 1944 – W. Somerset Maugham – The Razor's Edge (1944)
• 1945 – Evelyn Waugh – Brideshead Revisited (1945)
• 1946 – Mervyn Peake – Titus Groan (1946)
• 1947 – Saul Bellow – The Victim (1947)
• 1947 – Malcolm Lowry – Under the Volcano (1947)
• 1949 – Elizabeth Bowen – The Heat of the Day (1949)
• 1948 – Graham Greene – The Heart of the Matter (1948)
• 1948 – Aldous Huxley – Ape and Essence (1948)
• 1948 – Nevil Shute – No Highway (1948)
• 1948 – Norman Mailer – The Naked and the Dead (1948)
• 1949 – George Orwell – Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
• 1949 – William Sansom – The Body (1949)

1950s

• 1950 – William Cooper – Scenes from Provincial Life (1950)
• 1950 – Budd Schulberg – The Disenchanted (1950)
• 1951 – Anthony Powell – A Dance to the Music of Time (1951)
• 1951 – J. D. Salinger – The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
• 1951 – Henry Williamson – A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight (1951)
• 1951 – Herman Wouk – The Caine Mutiny (1951)
• 1952 – Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man (1952)
• 1952 – Ernest Hemingway – The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
• 1952 – Mary McCarthy – The Groves of Academe (1952)
• 1952 – Flannery O'Connor – Wise Blood (1952)
• 1952 – Evelyn Waugh – Sword of Honour (1952)
• 1953 – Raymond Chandler – The Long Goodbye (1953)
• 1954 – Kingsley Amis – Lucky Jim (1954)
• 1957 – John Braine – Room at the Top (1957)
• 1957 – Lawrence Durrell – The Alexandria Quartet (1957)
• 1957 – Colin MacInnes – The London Novels (1957)
• 1957 – Bernard Malamud – The Assistant (1957)
• 1958 – Iris Murdoch – The Bell (1958)
• 1958 – Alan Sillitoe – Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958)
• 1958 – T. H. White – The Once and Future King (1958)
• 1959 – William Faulkner – The Mansion (1959)
• 1959 – Ian Fleming – Goldfinger (1959)

1960s

• 1960 – L. P. Hartley – Facial Justice (1960)
• 1960 – Olivia Manning – The Balkan Trilogy (1960)
• 1961 – Ivy Compton-Burnett – The Mighty and Their Fall (1961)
• 1961 – Joseph Heller – Catch-22 (1961)
• 1961 – Richard Hughes – The Fox in the Attic (1961)
• 1961 – Patrick White – Riders in the Chariot (1961)
• 1961 – Angus Wilson – The Old Men at the Zoo (1961)
• 1962 – James Baldwin – Another Country (1962)
• 1962 – Aldous Huxley – Island (1962)
• 1962 – Pamela Hansford Johnson – An Error of Judgement (1962)
• 1962 – Doris Lessing – The Golden Notebook (1962)
• 1962 – Vladimir Nabokov – Pale Fire (1962)
• 1963 – Muriel Spark – The Girls of Slender Means (1963)
• 1964 – William Golding – The Spire (1964)
• 1964 – Wilson Harris – Heartland (1964)
• 1964 – Christopher Isherwood – A Single Man (1964)
• 1964 – Vladimir Nabokov – The Defense (1964)
• 1964 – Angus Wilson – Late Call (1964)
• 1965 – John O'Hara – The Lockwood Concern (1965)
• 1965 – Muriel Spark – The Mandelbaum Gate (1965)
• 1966 – Chinua Achebe – A Man of the People (1966)
• 1966 – Kingsley Amis – The Anti-Death League (1966)
• 1966 – John Barth – Giles Goat-Boy (1966)
• 1966 – Nadine Gordimer – The Late Bourgeois World (1966)
• 1966 – Walker Percy – The Last Gentleman (1966)
• 1967 – R. K. Narayan – The Vendor of Sweets (1967)
• 1968 – J. B. Priestley – The Image Men (1968)
• 1968 – Mordecai Richler – Cocksure (1968)
• 1968 – Keith Roberts – Pavane (1968)
• 1969 – John Fowles – The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969)
• 1969 – Philip Roth – Portnoy's Complaint (1969)

1970s

• 1970 – Len Deighton – Bomber (1970)
• 1973 – Michael Frayn – Sweet Dreams (1973)
• 1973 – Thomas Pynchon – Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
• 1975 – Saul Bellow – Humboldt's Gift (1975)
• 1975 – Malcolm Bradbury – The History Man (1975)
• 1976 – Robert Nye – Falstaff (1976)
• 1977 – Erica Jong – How to Save Your Own Life (1977)
• 1977 – James Plunkett – Farewell Companions (1977)
• 1977 – Paul Mark Scott – Staying On (1977)
• 1978 – John Updike – The Coup (1978)
• 1979 – J. G. Ballard – The Unlimited Dream Company (1979)
• 1979 – Bernard Malamud – Dubin's Lives (1979)
• 1979 – Brian Moore – The Doctor's Wife (1976)
• 1979 – V. S. Naipaul – A Bend in the River (1979)
• 1979 – William Styron – Sophie's Choice (1979)

1980s

• 1980 – Brian Aldiss – Life in the West (1980)
• 1980 – Russell Hoban – Riddley Walker (1980)
• 1980 – David Lodge – How Far Can You Go? (1980)
• 1980 – John Kennedy Toole – A Confederacy of Dunces (1980)
• 1981 – Alasdair Gray – Lanark (1981)
• 1981 – Alexander Theroux – Darconville's Cat (1981)
• 1981 – Paul Theroux – The Mosquito Coast (1981)
• 1981 – Gore Vidal – Creation (1981)
• 1982 – Robertson Davies – The Rebel Angels (1982)
• 1983 – Norman Mailer – Ancient Evenings (1983)

References

External links

• "Modern Novels; The 99 Best" by Anthony Burgess, New York Times (February 5, 1984), full text of "Introduction"
• Deccan Herald (April 11, 2004): "Big novel, shrinking universe"