English female writers best novels. What are the best novels by written by female authors from the England? When was the novel published and what is its content? Which women’s novels from England are considered the best?
English female writers best novels
Of course, you can debate at length what the best English novels by female authors are. In fact, every reader will have their own personal preferences. So a top-so list of the best novels by female authors from England isn’t entirely useful.
What are the best novels written by female authors from England?
Our editors have chosen to compile an alphabetical overview of English women’s novels that many consider more than worth reading. We will also be adding new, excellent novels by authors from England.
Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice
1813 novel
Editorial rating: ∗∗∗∗∗ (outstanding)
When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever. In the sparkling comedy of manners that follows…read on >
Aphra Behn – Oroonoko, or, the Royal Slave
1688 short novel about slavery
Although it was not popular duing Behn’s lifetime, today Oroonoko is Aphra Behn’s most widely read and most highly regarded work remains important. It also influenced the development of the English novel, developing the female narrative voice and treating anti-colonial and abolitionist themes Oroonoko is notable for its groundbreaking depiction of the horrors of slavery, and it has come to be called one of literature’s first abolitionist tracts…read on >
Angela Carter – Nights at the Circus
1984 novel
Editorial rating: ∗∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
Courted by the Prince of Wales and painted by Toulouse-Lautrec, she is an aerialiste extraordinaire and star of Colonel Kearney’s circus. She is also part woman, part swan. Jack Walser, an American journalist, is on a quest to discover the truth behind her identity. Dazzled by his love for her, and desperate for the scoop of a lifetime, Walser has no choice but to join the circus on its magical tour through turn-of-the-nineteenth-century London, St Petersburg and Siberia…read on >
Elizabeth Gaskell – North and South
1885 novel
Editorial rating: ∗∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
When her father leaves the Church, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the North of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of local mill workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice…read on >
Margaret Kennedy – Lucy Carmichael
1951 novel
Lucy Carmichael is jilted at the altar. But no matter. Her loving and kind family never liked her explorer fiancé anyway. Instead of moping or falling into her supportive family’s arms, however, Lucy abandons their suburban home. Heading for the country, she takes up a teaching position in the industrial town of Ravonsbridge. There, she finds solace in her work, in her new (rather gossipy) colleagues – and rediscovers her sensible young self…read on >
Penelope Lively – Heat Wave
1996 summer novel
Pauline is spending the summer at World’s End, a cottage somewhere in the middle of England. This year the adjoining cottage is occupied by her daughter Teresa and baby grandson Luke; and, of course, Maurice, the man Teresa married. As the hot months unfold, Maurice grows ever more involved in the book he is writing – and with his female copy editor – and Pauline can only watch in dismay and anger as her daughter repeats her own mistakes in love. The heat and tension will lead to a violent, startling climax…reead on >
Hilary Mantel – Wolf Hall
2009 historical novel
Editorrial rating: ∗∗∗∗∗ (outstanding)
Nederlandse vertaling: Wolf Hall
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?…lread on >
Iris Murdoch – The Sea, The Sea
1978 novel
Winner Booker Prize 1978
Editorial rating: ∗∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
When Charles Arrowby retires from his glittering career in the London theatre, he buys a remote house on the rocks by the sea. He hopes to escape from his tumultuous love affairs but unexpectedly bumps into his childhood sweetheart and sets his heart on destroying her marriage…read on >
Mary Shelley – The Last Man
1826 Engelse dystopian novel
Taal: Engels
Editorial rating: ∗∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
Set in the late twenty-first century, a deadly pandemic leaves a lone survivor, and follows his journey through a post-apocalyptic world, devoid of humanity and reclaimed by nature. Rather than give in to despair, Shelley imagines a new world where freshly-formed communities and alternative ways of being stand in for self-important politicians serving corrupt institutions, and where nature reigns mightily over humanity…read on >
Dodie Smith – I Capture the Castle
1949 novel
Editorial rating: ∗∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
Cassandra wittily describes life growing up in a crumbling castle, with her father who suffers from crippling writer’s block, her glamorous but ineffectual step-mother and her vain but beloved sister Rose. When two visiting Americans arrive, all of their lives are turned upside down, and Cassandra experiences her first love…reqd on >
Virginia Woolf – To the Lighthouse
1927 novel
Editorial rating: ∗∗∗∗∗ (outstanding)
To the Lighthouseis at once a vivid impressionistic depiction of a family holiday, and a meditation on marriage, on parenthood and childhood, on grief, tyranny and bitterness. For years now the Ramsays have spent every summer in their holiday home in Scotland, and they expect these summers will go on forever; but as the First World War looms, the integrity of family and society will be fatally challenged…read on >
Virginia Woolf – Mrs Dalloway
1925 novel
Clarissa Dalloway is begin vijftig, elegant en de perfecte gastvrouw, maar ze voelt zich oud en uitgerangeerd. Haar man is succesvol, maar saai, en haar volwassen dochter heeft haar zorg niet meer nodig. Op een dag komt Clarissa, terwijl zij bloemen koopt voor het feest van die avond, haar voormalige aanbidder Peter tegen, die zij in een ver verleden heeft afgewezen. Wat zou er van haar geworden zijn als ze dertig jaar eerder voor een avontuurlijk leven met Peter had gekozen?…read on >
Matching books
Afbeelding bovenzijde: Elizabeth Gaskell in 1851 (Public domain)