The 100 best novels: from Bunyan’s pilgrim to Carey’s Ned Kelly

Two years in the making, our list of the 100 greatest English-language novels of all time is now complete. Having endured many sleepless nights in its compilation, Robert McCrum reflects on who got left out, and why

• A response by Rachel Cooke: One in five doesn’t represent over 300 years of women in literature
• Series: The 100 best novels written in English

In the parlour game called “Humiliation”, in David Lodge’s 70s campus novel Changing Places, the players score points by confessing the famous works of literature they have never read. In a memorable comic climax, ambitious academic Howard Ringbaum admits he has never read Hamlet, instantly wrecking his career.

Lodge’s insight into the practice of literature is that everyone who steps into the world of books and letters risks humiliation. Rightly, for the well-being of culture and society, this is a competitive affair. Beneath the eye of eternity, it’s a matter of life and death: either some kind of literary afterlife or (more likely) oblivion.

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