Recommend me some quintessential British fiction

[Fishpond]

I'm American and have read a fair bit of the British "classics" but I'm looking for the ones that fly a little further under the radar.

Disclaimer is I must be able to find them here! I've had a few recommendations before but couldn't find them anywhere (even amazon!) for purchase / loan.

Lark rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson

Josephine Tey - especially Brat Farrar but also her other books.

Also The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey
Also End of the Affair by Graham Greene

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers (or any others in Lord Peter Wimsey series)
any of the Campion books by Margery Allingham

Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale

a bit different, about immigrant to britain experience:-
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Brick Lane by Monica Ali

Non-fiction - Pies and Prejuice by Stuart Maconie (v. good on North of England)

we need more scottish/welsh/n. irish literature as well to recommend...

Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Jekyll and Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller

The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas
Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas

Incendiary by Chris Cleave

Under the Skin by Michel Faber

A Kind of Intimacy by Jenn Ashworth

The Servants by MM Smith

The House At Midnight by Lucie Whitehouse

Can't Let Go by Jane Hill

Christmas with the Savages by Mary Clive

Death of a Murderer by Rupert Thomson

The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch

The Collector by John Fowles

Monster Love by Carol Topolski

Someone At A Distance by Dorothy Whipple - This one is a Persephone Classics re-release that really is lovely, Dorothy Whipple was unjustly forgotten about but recently rediscovered.

I can't see that anyone has mentioned it. Maybe so obvious you've forgotton but i adore Sherlock Holmes. Very fast paced and gripping novels. And the 39 steps by john buchan is possibly the most exciting book i've ever read. I even read it walking to walk and nearly got run over!

I have got to agree with the poster who says she envies someone who has never read Vanity Fair. It is such a brilliant and oddly Modern novel, has real resonance with modern life despite being set in Regency times. And a brilliant heroine (who is a cow but I still love her).

Ditto Love in a Cold Climate and Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford, and the Mapp and Lucia books.

Ooh yes, yes, yes to 'Vanity Fair' and Sherlock Holmes. Nancy Mitford does nothing for me - I expected to love her and tried hard to do so, but just don't get on with her at all.

What about, "The Lord Of The Flies' - another very English, very of its period, bloomin' brilliant book.

Read lord of the flies in school.

Vanity Fair I have somehow gotten to the age of 25 never having read, so I think with all the fantastic recs here I will pick that one up first!

Dare I suggest Jilly Cooper? Riders, Rivals etc, would certainly fit the quintessentially British criteria.

I've just re-read Rebecca too, Daphne Du Maurier is great.

Downloaded a couple of Mapp and Lucia on the recommendation of this thread as have never read them.

Dorothy L Sayers mysteries, starting with Clouds of Witness
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
The Cazalet stories by Elizabeth Jane Howard, starting with The Light Years
Possession by A S Byatt

D H Lawrence - start with Lady Chatterley's lover!

Evelyn Waugh - Decline & Fall, Brideshead, etc.

John Le Carre's spy novels

I agree with loads of the recommendations here, particularly Waugh, Trollope and I Capture the Castle.

Just wanted to say on availability, if it works the same in reverse, you can use your Amazon ID & password to buy on any of the Amazon sites worldwide - I am in the UK now, but used to buy from Amazon.com, .co.uk and .co.jp when I was living in Japan (would check availability & postage on all of them to get best deal), and have bought from .com while in the UK (US books & DVDs not yet available here). Obviously you will pay more postage if you buy from the UK, but it's not always as bad as you think.

Neville Shute; despite often being abroad I always feel is very 'british'

Ooh, have realised that most of my list have already been covered, but forgot to add The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim - a lovely, joyful book about lonely, miserable women cheering up a lot on holiday in Italy.

And I also find India Knight very funny, but I know that some loathe her with a passion.

I'm at my local bookstore and can you believe they don't have Vanity Fair

I second The 39 steps.
Other classic spy/thriller: The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers, Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household. King Solomon's Mines by Rider Haggard for colonial adventuring.

I've just thought of Elizabeth Gaskell - 19th century social novels set in the north of England and much better than that makes it sound. My favourite is North and South, closely followed by Mary Barton. A lot of people like Cranford, but I don't.

Would you read the Agatha Christie books?

The Go-Between is a goodun. It's available on US Amazon here

Fishpond what would you recommend me as quintessential American fiction.
Here in NZ the online booksellers are called Fishpond - is there a link?

Most of what I was going to suggest has already been covered, Jonathan Coe's books for example. Muriel Spark, not just Miss Jean Brodie great though that is, but also some of her novels set in 50s/60s London, Loitering with Intent is great and I'm trying to remember the other one I loved last year - The Ballad of Peckham Rye is worth a read too but there was one I loved more.

I don't think anyone's mentioned Winifred Holtby's South Riding, a brilliant novel about 1930s local government in rural and small town Yorkshire which is regarded as the author's masterpiece. I also really enjoyed Anderby Wold, her first novel. All her books have been published in Virago Modern Classics, The Crowded Street is currently a Persephone, but they're all out of copyright now as she died more than 70 years ago and there are currently two editions of South Riding on sale here.

You could do worse than read crime fiction - a mixture of "Golden Age" and modern day stuff.

Another vote here for pretty much everything reissued by Persephone Books

Dorothy Whipple 'They Were Sisters' is astonishing. One of the earliest honest, painful treatments of domestic violence. And a wonderful story of love and hurt between sisters.

And if you want to go beyond English, please to kindly read John Burnside's memoirs, Waking Up In Toytown and A Lie About My Father (JB is THE Scottish writer, IMHO!)