The greatest British novel of all time

BBC评出10部最经典英国小说

导读：BBC文化专栏投稿人通过调查82位来自英国以外国家的书籍评论家，获得了外国人对英国文学的看法，通过调查显示，英国最经久不衰的小说是乔治·艾略特的《米德尔马契》。

10.Vanity Fair (William Makepeace Thackeray, 1848)

威廉·梅克皮斯·萨克雷《名利场》，1848年出版

This novel features probably the greatest anti-heroine in English literature, Becky Sharp, and a plot that revolves around class, social climbing and a financial crisis that will seem eerily familiar to modern readers.Vanity Fair has it all. It both speaks of its time, and speaks of all times.

这部小说的主角或许就是英国文学史上最知名的非正统派女主角——贝奇·夏普，小说的情节围绕阶级、社会、跻身上流社会以及现代读者听来又熟悉又害怕的金融危机。《名利场》这些要素全都具备, 讲述那个年代，也讲述着每一个年代。

9.Frankenstein (Mary Shelley, 1818)

玛莉·雪莱《科学怪人》，1818年出版

This pioneering work of science fiction and Gothic horror developed an indelible ’monster’ of a theme that has endured for centuries: of the scientist as a "modern Prometheus".

这部先锋作品集科幻和哥特式恐怖于一身，营造了一个难以磨灭的“恶魔”主题，即科学家中的“现代普罗米修斯”，几世纪以来经久不衰。

8.David Copperfield (Charles Dickens, 1850)

查尔斯·狄更斯《大卫·科波菲尔》，1850年出版

David Copperfield is populated by some of the most vivid characters ever created. They are as much a part of readers’ world, and their way of thinking about the world, as people they have actually met.

《大卫·科波菲尔》人物形象众多，性格鲜活的角色云集。这些人物角色仿佛是读者所在真实世界的一部分，和读者亲身遇见的人一样，有着相似的世界观。

7.Wuthering Heights (Emily Bront?, 1847)

艾米莉·勃朗特《呼啸山庄》，1847年出版

Wuthering Heights is "powered by more psychological energy than any book ever written". Readers admire Wuthering Heights because of "its layered narrative structure, because it is a work of incredible imagination, and because it is far more than a love story. The story shows ’the eternal rocks beneath’ our fleeting desires.

《呼啸山庄》“蕴含巨大的心理能量，没有其它书籍能够与之匹敌。”读者推崇《呼啸山庄》是因为其“层层叠叠的叙述结构”和丰富惊人的想象力，更因为《呼啸山庄》超越了爱情故事本身，展现了我们转瞬即逝的欲望之下“永恒的震撼”。

6.Bleak House (Charles Dickens, 1853)

查尔斯·狄更斯《荒凉之屋》，1853年出版

Bleak House is among Dickens novels, uniquely original in its alternation of first-person past-tense chapters with a concurrent third-person account in present tense.

《荒凉之屋》是狄更斯的小说之一，以第一人称过去时所写的章节与第三人称现在时的叙述并行，两者间的切换创新独到。

5.Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bront?, 1847)

夏洛蒂·勃朗特《简·爱》，1847年出版

Bront?’s revolutionary 1847 Gothic romance about a young woman seeking a richer and more passionate life on her own still resonates with modern readers. Bront?’s novel features the orphan Jane Eyre’s search for an identity, her powerful attraction to her master, Mr Rochester, and an intimate description of her complex moral choices and sometimes raw emotional states.

勃朗特这部哥特式爱情传奇出版于1847年，内容革新，讲述了一个年轻女性追寻更为充实激情的生活，至今仍能引起现代读者的共鸣。 勃朗特小说的主人翁简·爱是个孤儿，追寻着自我的身份，主人罗切斯特先生深深吸引着她，其情至真令简`爱无法抗拒;小说真切描述了简·爱复杂的道德抉择及其有时显得有些原始的情感状态。

4.Great Expectations (Charles Dickens, 1861)

查尔斯·狄更斯《远大前程》，1861年出版

Great Expectations might be the quintessential British novel. To re-read Dickens’ classic as an adult is to discover its wit and brio, its influence, and its truth. It has all the elements of classic Dickens – endearing, flawed characters; a plot that skewers the politics of the time; subplots that skewer morality and culture; a love story; and a wonderful storyline.

《远大前程》或许是最地道的英国小说。成年读者重温狄更斯经典，去发现其智慧与精彩、影响与真理。《远大前程》有狄更斯经典的所有元素，讨人欢喜却不甚完美的角色、主要故事情节能牵住时局、副线情节串起道德与文化，是部情节精彩的爱情故事作品。

3.Mrs Dalloway (Virginia Woolf, 1925)

弗吉尼亚·伍尔芙《达洛卫夫人》，1925年出版

If the most precious gift of the novel as a medium is the power it has to break into the prison of human consciousness, to expose the gossamer weave of thought and feeling and memory that makes up our innermost lives, then Woolf’s fourth novel stands alone at the pinnacle.Virginia Woolf made modernism live and breathe.

如果说这部小说作为媒介最天才之处在于其破除人类意识的囹圄、显露人们细若蛛丝的思绪、显露构成我们内心生活的记忆，那么伍尔芙的第四部小说本身就是鼎峰之作。弗吉尼亚让现代主义焕发新生、重现生机。

2.To the Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf, 1927)

弗吉尼亚·伍尔芙《到灯塔去》，1927年出版

Subtle, beautiful, staggeringly intelligent and flat-out original. A masterpiece of modernism, its stream-of-consciousness, richness of language and perceptions has continued to reveal itself.

细腻美妙、智慧惊人，是不折不扣的原创之作。现代派的大师之作，运用意识流写法，其语言丰富、观察敏锐，不言自明。

1.Middlemarch (George Eliot, 1874)

乔治·艾略特《米德尔马契》，1874年出版

A novel of great characters, it’s an even greater novel of ideas and ideals. Middlemarch is the greatest social and psychological novel ever written in English.

这部小说人物角色卓越，更精妙之处在于其想法与理念。《米德尔马契》是迄今最伟大的英文社会心理学小说。