Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

"the two greatest novelists in the English language are women"

17 replies

FromGirders · 11/05/2009 19:39

Mark whatshisname on R4 has just said this during an interview with a Edna O'Brian (author of Country Girls). To my shame, I can't immediately think of who he would have meant. The only name popping into my head is Jane Austen. Any ideas??

OP posts:
Kathyis6incheshigh · 11/05/2009 19:40

Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot?

janeite · 11/05/2009 19:43

Jane Austen deffo.

I suspect it would be G Eliot as the second, since the Brontes would need to be counted en masse rather than picking one individual.

I don't like GE though!

BitOfFun · 11/05/2009 19:43

Kathyis6incheshigh- glad I've caught you. I had a dream last night where someone asked me to say hello to you and give you a message. Unfortunately I can't remember who or what < useless and bizarre >

Kathyis6incheshigh · 11/05/2009 19:45

Ooh BitofFun - I've never (AFAIK) been in someone's dream before!

BitOfFun · 11/05/2009 19:48

It was odd, they just asked me if I knew Kathy and I thought "Ooh, Kathyis6incheshigh, yes", and then they gave me the message ... But ppft, tis gone from my head

Jane Austen for sure, don't know about the other one though...

sassy · 11/05/2009 19:50

Eliot deffo. Middlemarch is "the best" novel in the English language. Allegedly. (I didn't especially like it).

nickytwotimes · 11/05/2009 19:54

What about more contemporary novelists like Pat Barker or Doris Lessing?

nickytwotimes · 11/05/2009 19:55

Virginia Woolf?

sobloodystupid · 11/05/2009 19:56

I don't like GE either. I adore the Brontes, and I also think Emily Bronte is great (but I love Anne Bronte's "Agnes Grey" too).
JA is undoubtedly one of the women

lalalonglegs · 11/05/2009 20:00

They were definitely talking about Austen and Eliot but, yes, you could add Woolf to the list quite easily and best short novel ever would be a toss up between Silas Marner and Cousin Phyllis (Elizabeth Gaskell). I wonder why so few women have been equally significant playwrights and poets.

lalalonglegs · 11/05/2009 20:01

Why don't people like George Eliot?

smallorange · 11/05/2009 20:03

Not Iris Murdoch?

janeite · 11/05/2009 20:04

Wuthering Heights is readable, just not very good!

I just found GE tedious.

I think neither Pat Barker nor Doris L have been around for long enough to be said to have stood the test of time in the way that Austen, the Brontes and G Eliot have, so couldn't be classed as great in the English literary tradition.

sassy · 11/05/2009 20:05

I liked Mill on the Floss and really intend to read Daniel Deronda. It was just Middlemarch that didn't work for me. It was just so ... dense.

FromGirders · 11/05/2009 20:42

Ta! I wondered about George Elliot, but have to confess I've never read any of her work.

OP posts:
Nighbynight · 11/05/2009 20:51

Best is definitely George Eliot.
am struggling to think of second best, there are a whole clutch of novellists struggling for the second place.

EachPeachPearMum · 12/05/2009 11:26

I'd say Doris Lessing tbh

New posts on this thread. Refresh page