Dickens' grittiness and Pratchett's escapism are voted UK's top reads

Published on Saturday 17 May 2003 01:00

ONE is widely considered the greatest author Britain has ever produced, the other is an award-winning writer never out of the best-sellers list. Charles Dickens’ vivid descriptions of the social evils of Victorian life and Terry Pratchett’s tales of social justice, set in a whimsical universe peopled by trolls and werewolves, have emerged as the British public’s most popular authors, according to a poll for the BBC’s The Big Read - the follow-up to its hit series, Great Britons.

Dickens and Pratchett are the most nominated authors on the list of the nation’s 100 best-loved books, each with five works, closely followed by children’s writers, JK Rowling, with all four Harry Potter novels voted for, and Jacqueline Wilson, also with four.

However, while the list of the Top 100 books was published yesterday, the nation will have to wait until the autumn to discover the order in which people voted, when The Big Read airs on BBC Two for a major documentary series. Then, the 20 most popular novels will be championed by celebrity advocates who will attempt to persuade viewers why their personal best-loved book is best and end with a live showdown similar to the Great Britons final, which ended in victory for Winston Churchill.

The works chosen span most genres, with an emphasis on British authors, 66 of them are written by British authors past and present, from Charlotte Bronte, Robert Louis Stevenson and George Orwell to Roald Dahl and Douglas Adams.

However, some of the great American novels are there, such as John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsy’s Crime and Punishment features, as does the Brazilian writer, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Children’s books featured highly on the list, with 30 of them making it into the top 100. Rowling’s and Wilson’s books were joined by Philip Pulman’s His Dark Materials trilogy and the classic children’s story, Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell.

Readers have not gone for the most recent blockbuster - only 41 of them are from the best-sellers list which began in 1974. Nearly 140,000 people voted, mainly via the web, four times the number of people who voted in Great Britons.

At the launch of the list at the British Library, in London, yesterday, Mark Harrison, the BBC’s creative director - arts, and also the executive director of The Big Read, said it would give people the chance to debate all the great questions of human existence. "The thing about voting for your favourite book, rather than the greatest is that people are not voting for what they think they ought to vote for. It’s a fantastically diverse list. It’s difficult to think of any genre or area of writing that is not represented."

Jane Root, the controller of BBC 2 said that she hoped the project, which will take place off-air throughout the summer, in libraries, schools and workshops, would kick-start a "summer of reading" for thousands.

Mr Harrison said that he was surprised at the omission of a few titles he expected to see. "There isn’t a single Nick Hornby - his books are incredibly popular and you see people reading them all the time. Also, that there’s no Maeve Binchey or Catherine Cookson. Also books that seemed to be very popular at the time, like Umberto Eco’s The Name of The Rose, or Atonement, by Ian McEwan. However, Donna Tartt’s Secret History is there, as is Captain’s Corelli’s Mandolin, by Louis de Bernieres, and The Thornbirds by Colleen McCollough."

The full list will be available on The Big Read on BBC 2 on Saturday, 17 May at 9:05pm, followed by a debate with Andrew Marr on BBC 4 at 10:05pm.