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

[FromGirders]

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??

Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot?

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!

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 >

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

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...

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

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

Virginia Woolf?

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

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.

Why don't people like George Eliot?

Not Iris Murdoch?

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.

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.

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

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

I'd say Doris Lessing tbh