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The nation's 100 best-loved novels were unveiled on Saturday 17 May as part of the BBC's Big Read campaign. Penguin publishes forty-five of the titles, reinforcing our position as the leading brand in consumer publishing, and the home of books people love to read.
Managing Director of Penguin, Helen Fraser is delighted with Penguin's strong representation on the list. "Penguin occupies a unique position in the book world. Since Allen Lane's 1935 commitment to publish good quality fiction at an attractive price, Penguin has continued to offer the broadest possible range of paperbacks to appeal to all tastes: from Homer to Hornby. The high number of Penguin titles on the BBC's list is a testament to the brand's enduring appeal."
Penguin relaunched its Black Classics list in February 2003 for the first time in almost twenty years. Penguin Classics were part of Allen Lane's mission to "democratise learning" and bring the greatest literature within reach of everyone. Nineteen of the top 100 books are available in the newly designed format. In many cases the editions contain new editorial material, expanded introductions, useful chronologies of authors' lives and works and a redesigned text.
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (intro by Richard Pevear, preface - John Bayley)
Bleak House - Charles Dickens (intro by Nicola Bradbury, preface - Terry Eagleton)
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (intro by Michael Slater)
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandra Dumas (intro by Robin Buss)
Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevksy (intro by David McDuff)
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (intro by Jeremy Tambling)
Emma - Jane Austen (intro by Fiona Stafford)
Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy (intro by Rosemarie Morgan)
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (intro by David Trotter)
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (intro by Michael Mason)
Middlemarch - George Elliot (intro by Rosemary Ashton)
Persuasion - Jane Austen (intro by Gillian Beer)
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (intro by Vivien Jones)
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (intro by Richard Maxwell)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (intro by Margaret Higonnet)
Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson (intro by John Seelye)
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (intro by Rosemary Edmonds)
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins (intro by Matthew Sweet)
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (intro by Pauline Nester, preface - Lucasta Miller)
Here are some contemporary fans of the classics that appear in the top 100 list:
"Middlemarch - Jane Austen with passion and amplitude" - Martin Amis
"Anna Karenina - all of humanity is in it, one way or the other." - Simon Schama
"Middlemarch by George Eliot" - Cherie Booth
"War and Peace by Tolstoy" - Doris Lessing
"Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen" - Iain Duncan Smith
"David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - the first great, and perhaps still the greatest, novel about growing up." - Ian Jack
"Great Expectations by Charles Dickens" - Andrew Motion
"My favourite classic novel is Great Expectations by Charles Dickens." - Julie Burchill
"Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, not only because they are great stories but because they were turned into wonderful musicals which were great success for me." - Sir Cameron Mackintosh
"Persuasion by Jane Austen" - Julian Barnes
"Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy" - Susan Greenfield
Nigel Wilcockson, Publishing Director for Penguin Classics commented, "I'm delighted to find so many classics listed among the nation's 100 best-loved novels - it's a real testament to their enduring appeal and their power to speak afresh to each new generation. They remain best-sellers many decades after they were first published."
The remaining adult authors are either Penguin Modern classics - such as Orwell, Steinbeck and Joyce, or are books that feature among Penguin's perennial bestsellers:
1984 - George Orwell (intro by Ben Pimlott)
Animal Farm - George Orwell (intro by Malcolm Bradbury)
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (intro by Tony Tanner)
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Perfume - Patrick Suskind
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Ulysses - James Joyce
30% of the top 100 are children's titles, and Penguin's children's imprint, Puffin publishes eleven titles on the list (not including its editions of some of the adult titles mentioned above):
Anne of Green Gables - L M Montgomery
Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
The BFG - Roald Dahl
Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
Goodnight Mister Tom - Michelle Magorian
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Matilda - Roald Dahl
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Twits - Roald Dahl
Watership Down - Richard Adams
The list contains four titles by Roald Dahl. Puffin has published Roald Dahl's hugely popular stories since the early 1970s. In 2003 nearly thirteen years after his death he is still one of the most widely read and bestselling authors in the UK with approximately a million copies of his books sold every year.
Roald Dahl's widow, Felicity Dahl says "It is wonderful to see four of Roald's books on the list. Over the past forty or so years generations of children have fallen in love with Roald's stories. He would have been thrilled that children today are getting the same joy from these books as their parents did when they were young."
Francesca Dow, Managing Director of Puffin, commented, "It's wonderful to see such a range of old and new favourites on the list - and that so many of these are Puffin's. 'With newcomers such as Artemis Fowl and firm favourites such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory what better confirmation that Puffin, after more than 60 years, continues its great tradition of publishing the finest books that children really want to read."
www.penguinclassics.com is an excellent resource for discovering more about the classics titles on the list. Here you will find articles, extracts and experts to provide background on all the classics published by Penguin. Including essays by:
Lisa Appignanesi on Anna Karenina; Kate Kellaway on Frances Hodgson Burnett;
Sarah Waters on Great Expectations, as well as a lively discussion forum often focussing on people's favourite books.
Information about our children's titles can be found on www.puffin.co.uk and from there you can link through to Roald Dahl and Eoin Colfer sites.
Complete list of Penguin titles from the Big Read Top 100: (alphabetical by title):
1984 - George Orwell
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - CS Lewis
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
The BFG - Roald Dahl
Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
Charlie & the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexander Dumas
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Emma - Jane Austen
Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
Goodnight Mr Tom - Michelle Magorian
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel - Garcia Marquez
Matilda - Roald Dahl
Middlemarch - George Elliot
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
On the road - Jack Kerouac
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Perfume - Patrick Suskind
Persuasion - Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Tess of the D'Ubervilles - Thomas Hardy
Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
The Twits - Roald Dahl
Ulysses - James Joyce
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Watership Down - Richard Adams
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
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